11 Billion Years Into the Past: Most Detailed View Ever of Our Expanding Universe

11 Billion Years Into the Past: Most Detailed View Ever of Our Expanding Universe

Cosmoview Episode 78: Since beginning its survey of the sky in 2021, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has observed a new set of 5,000 galaxies every 20 minutes, totaling more than 100,000 galaxies per night, in its quest to create the largest 3D map of the Universe ever. Using the survey’s first-year data, containing the largest extragalactic spectroscopic sample ever collected, astronomers report that they have measured the Universe’s expansion history over the last 11 billion years with a precision better than 1%. These measurements confirm the basics of our best model of the Universe, while also uncovering some tantalizing areas to explore with more data.

The Mayall Telescope is a four-meter (158 inches) reflector telescope in Arizona named after Nicholas U. Mayall. It saw first light on February 27, 1973, and was the second-largest telescope in the world at that time.

Credits:

Images and Videos: DESI Collaboration/KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R.T. Sparks/T. Slovinský/D. Kirkby/R. Proctor

Duration: 1 minute, 25 seconds

Release Date: April 4, 2024

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