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Tag: dark energy

Dark Energy Instrument’s Lenses See the Night Sky for the First Time

Topping Off a Telescope with New Tools to Explore Dark Energy

Photo - Crews at the Mayall Telescope near Tucson, Arizona, lift and install the top-end components for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI. The components, which include a stack of six lenses and other structures or positioning and support, weigh about 12 tons. DESI, scheduled to begin its sky survey next year, is designed to produce the largest 3-D map of the universe and produce new clues about the nature of dark energy. (Credit: David Sprayberry, NOAO/AURA)

Tiny Distortions in Universe’s Oldest Light Reveal Clearer Picture of Strands in Cosmic Web

Illustration - In this illustration, the trajectory of cosmic microwave background light is bent by structures known as filaments that are invisible to our eyes, creating an effect known as weak lensing captured by the Planck satellite (left), a space observatory. Researchers used computers to study the weak lensing signals and produce a map of these filaments, which typically span hundreds of light years in length. (Credit: Siyu He, Shadab Alam, Wei Chen, and Planck/ESA)

Solving the Dark Energy Mystery: A New Assignment for a 45-Year-Old Telescope

Photo - A view inside the dome at the Mayall Telescope in Arizona. The telescope’s 2-meter corrector barrel will be removed and replaced with a new corrector barrel for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. DESI’s installation will begin soon at the telescope. (Credit: P. Marenfeld and NOAO/AURA/NSF)

Star Mergers: A New Test of Gravity, Dark Energy Theories

Image - Artist’s illustration of two merging neutron stars. The rippling space-time grid represents gravitational waves that travel out from the collision, while the narrow beams show the bursts of gamma rays that are shot out just seconds after the gravitational waves. Swirling clouds of material ejected from the merging stars are also depicted. The clouds glow with visible and other wavelengths of light. (Credit: NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet)

Creating a World of Make-Believe to Better Understand the Real Universe

Image - This plot shows a thin slice through a mock galaxies catalog. The blue and green points are “bright” and “faint” galaxies simulated for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument’s Bright Galaxy Survey, and the red points show galaxies that are brighter than the magnitude limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. (Credit: Alex Smith/Durham University)

Attention Earthlings: Help Wanted in Finding a New Planet

Image - The public is now invited to participate in the hunt for a hypothetical ninth planet in our solar system, dubbed Planet Nine. This image shows an artist's concept of how Planet Nine may appear—if it exists. (Credit: NASA)

New Path Forward for Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Batteries

Four researchers standing next to a supercomputer.

$40M to Establish New Observatory Probing Early Universe

Photo - The Simons Array will be located in Chile's High Atacama Desert, at an elevation of about 17,000 feet. The site currently hosts the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (bowl-shaped structure at upper right) and the Simons Array (the three telescopes at the bottom left, middle and right). The Simons Observatory will incorporate several new telescopes and set the stage for a next-generation experiment. (University of Pennsylvania)

Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley Scientists to Participate in New NASA Space Telescope Project

Image - A rendering of NASA's WFIRST with a background image of a spiral galaxy and supernova.

New Galaxy-hunting Sky Camera Sees Redder Better

Explore Galaxies Far, Far Away at Internet Speeds