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Largest dark energy map could reveal the fate of the universe | Live Science

This is one big map

By Tom Metcalfe, published 1 day ago

Star trails are seen over the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope on Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. (Image credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld)

A modified telescope in Arizona has produced an interim map, which is already the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever — and the instrument is only about a tenth of the way through its five-year mission.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and scientists around the world, was installed between 2015 and 2019 on the Mayall telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in the Sonoran Desert, about 50 miles (88 kilometers) west of Tucson, and has been conducting a survey for less than a year.

Its purpose is to create an even larger 3D map of the universe, to yield a better understanding of the physics of dark energy, the mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Source: Largest dark energy map could reveal the fate of the universe | Live Science