You may have heard of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Department of Energy. We reported on the project all the way back in 2016 when the team of scientists launched 5,000 small robots into space to help develop the first map of the universe beyond earth.
Then, in 2017,
we reported how the project had created a 3D map of our galaxy’s space dust. The
map was successful at plotting each individual dust that exists in our galaxy
in order to clear up the deep space view and measure the accelerating expansion
rate of the universe. Now, DESI has revealed that it has finally created the largest and most detailed
map of the universe ever. As impressive as this achievement is, DESI notes that
it's only 10% done with its five-year mission.
“There is a lot of beauty to it,” said Berkeley Lab scientist Julien Guy. “In the distribution of the galaxies in the 3D map, there are huge clusters, filaments, and voids. They’re the biggest structures in the universe. But within them, you find an imprint of the very early universe, and the history of its expansion since then.”
DESI had to overcome
many obstacles to produce this impressive achievement. During the coronavirus
pandemic, the telescope had to be shut down and it was only in December 2020
that it could start to explore the sky again. Luckily, despite these issues, by
May 2021 it was ready to start its science survey.
However, that
wasn't the end of the DESI team's inputs to the telescope. “It’s constant
work that goes on to this instrument perform,” concluded physicist Klaus
Honscheid of Ohio State University, co-instrument scientist on the project. It
is work that has paid off well providing a never-before-seen map that will one
day help us understand the past and future of the universe.