the universe does indeed exist when it is not being observed

According to The Economist, there's good news about reality. "The good news is reality exists. The bad is it’s even stranger than people thought."
By observing the behavio(u)r^[1], of photons, without really observing them^[2], scientists were able to determine "the universe does indeed exist when it is not being observed."
OK, now that we know that, we can and should go about our business; the Universe will get along just fine without our needing to supervise it.

^[1]The Economist is a British magazine.
^[2]See Observer effect