Galaxy Cluster Virtual Reality Flight (vertical view) | Mayall Telescope+DESI

Galaxy Cluster Virtual Reality Flight (vertical view) | Mayall Telescope+DESI

In this video, take a flight through millions of galaxies mapped using coordinate data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on NOIRLab's Mayall Telescope in Arizona. Researchers have used DESI to map nearly six million galaxies across 11 billion years of cosmic history, allowing them to study how galaxies clustered throughout time and investigate the growth of the cosmic structure. 

This complex analysis of DESI’s first-year data provides one of the most stringent tests yet of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can capture light from 5,000 galaxies simultaneously. It was constructed, and is operated, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. 

DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab. The program is now in its fourth of five years surveying the sky and is set to observe roughly 40 million galaxies and quasars by the time the project ends.

The DESI project is an international collaboration of more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions around the world and is managed by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Learn more about DESI: https://www.desi.lbl.gov

Learn more about the Mayall Telescope: 

https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/kpno/telescopes/nicholas-mayall-4m-telescope

Credit: Fiske Planetarium/CU Boulder/DESI Collaboration
Duration: 31 seconds
Release Date: Nov. 19, 2024

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