47 million galaxies and Earth-like planets… discovering amazing new information about the universe

According to a report by the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, this map came as a result of a scientific project that spanned five continuous years, using about 5,000 optical fiber lenses within the “Dark Energy Spectrometer” (DESI) device.
/>
The project aims to scan the sky with high precision to draw a three-dimensional map of the universe, as it was able to monitor more than 47 million galaxies and 20 million additional stars.

Black Holes

This survey is about six times larger in terms of data compared to all previous studies combined, including monitoring galaxies and quasars, which are very bright signals issued by black holes.

Dr. Seshadri Nadathur, the researcher, explained The University of Portsmouth and the team leader said that each of the 5,000 lenses was capturing different points in the sky every night, while robotic arms were redirecting them with an accuracy of up to 10 microns (less than the thickness of a hair) every 20 minutes, before analyzing the light through ten spectrographs to determine the objects’ location, speed, and chemical composition.

More than 900 scientists from 70 research institutions around the world are participating in the project, with the aim of studying dark energy, the mysterious force that represents… 70% of the universe and responsible for accelerating its expansion.

Properties of dark energy

Data from the first three years of the survey showed that dark energy, which was considered constant, may in fact be variable, which may change traditional scientific hypotheses about the evolution and fate of the universe.

Scientists hope that the complete map will help determine whether the properties of dark energy differ from what was previously thought.

While prevailing theories linked the origin and end of the universe to a delicate balance between Dark matter and energy, and the final results of the project are expected to be announced during the next year.