Astronomers Just Dropped the Largest High-Res 3D Map of the Universe

Key Points:

• The Dark Energy Spectroscopy Instrument (DESI) has completed a five-year survey, mapping over 47 million galaxies and quasars and 20 million nearby stars, creating the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe spanning 11 billion years of cosmic history.
• DESI collected cosmological data on six times as many galaxies and quasars as all previous measurements combined, providing a vast dataset for studying dark energy, the force driving the universe's accelerated expansion.
• Preliminary analyses from DESI suggested that dark energy changes over time, challenging previous models that assumed it was constant; the full dataset now allows scientists to further investigate this groundbreaking possibility.
• Equipped with 5,000 fiber-optic sensors, DESI gathers about 80 gigabytes of data nightly, covering roughly two-thirds of the northern sky and even conducting a side project studying lunar light effects on observations.
• DESI will continue surveying until 2028, revisiting uncharted sky regions to enhance understanding of dark energy, dark matter, dwarf galaxies, and stellar streams, with researchers anticipating new discoveries beyond the original survey goals.