Astronomers just finished the biggest, sharpest 3D map of the universe—and it’s beautiful

See! This is the largest, sharpest 3D map of the universe to date

By Claire Cameron edited by Lee Billings

Astronomers have just created the largest high-resolution three-dimensional map of the universe, including more than 47 million galaxies and other massive objects. The map could help solve the mystery of dark energy, the enigmatic substance that dominates the cosmos.

Scientists know that dark energy is everywhere something which causes the accelerated expansion of the universe. But despite the ubiquity and immensity of dark energy’s large-scale effects, no one yet knows what it actually is. Many experts suspect that dark energy is simply the so-called “cosmological constant,” a manipulative factor that Albert Einstein added to the equations of his theory of general relativity. The cosmological constant represents the energy density of “empty” space and maintains the universe in a stable state of expansion. But this explanation is only one possibility as to the true nature of dark energy.

The new map was constructed by research teams using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), mounted on a telescope in Arizona and which studied huge areas of the night sky over a five-year period. The international project is led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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Data from the first three years of DESI suggest that the influence of dark energy on the cosmos could change over time, calling into question some fundamental assumptions about the nature of the universe. “Ultimately, we are doing this for all of humanity, to better understand our Universe and its eventual fate,” Stephanie Juneau, an associate astronomer at the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) and a member of the DESI collaboration, said in a statement.

“After finding clues that dark energy could deviate from a [cosmological] constant, potentially altering this fate, this moment has me feeling like I’m sitting on the edge of my seat as we analyze the new map to see if these clues will be confirmed. I am also very intrigued by the many other discoveries that await us in this new dataset,” she said.

DESI data includes six times more galaxies and other cosmic objects than all previous measurements combined, according to NOIRLab. Attention now turns to processing and analyzing all this data: the collaboration hopes to obtain more definitive results on dark energy in 2027. And although its five-year study is complete, DESI is not done; until 2028, the project will continue its observations and expand its map by an additional 20%. This next step will focus on areas of the sky that are more difficult to observe, as well as certain celestial regions where more distant and fainter objects may still be hiding.

“DESI’s five-year survey has been spectacularly successful,” Michael Levi, director of DESI and a scientist at Berkeley Lab, said in a statement. “We will celebrate the completion of the initial investigation and then begin analyzing the data, because we are all curious about what new surprises await us.”

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