The Largest 3D Universe Map Ever Made Unravels The Measurements Of Dark Energy

Physicists and astronomers created a three-dimensional map of distant 1.2 million galaxies that would make precise measurements of the dark energy.

Jeremy Tinker of New York University and the co-leader of the scientific team explained that they have spent five years accumulating measurements of 1.2 million galaxies over one-quarter of the sky to map out the structure of the Universe over a volume of 650 cubic billion light years. He further explained that this map has allowed them to make the best measurements yet of the effects of dark energy and the expansion of the Universe. They are making the results and the map available to the world.

The research was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society this week. It was led by researchers from DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, according to Science Daily.

With the new map, which was constructed using the data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) program of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III the researchers can measure the expansion rate of the Universe. They can also determine the amount of matter and dark energy that would make up the present-day Universe. The astronomers could also analyze the changes that are taking place in the Universe and how dark energy influences it, according to Express.

David Schlegel, an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and principal investigator for BOSS said that they have made the largest map for studying the 95 percent of the universe that is dark. He further said that in this map, they can see galaxies being gravitationally pulled towards other galaxies by dark matter. On much larger scales, they can see the effect of dark energy ripping the universe apart.

Dark energy is an undetermined form of energy which is theorized to enter all of the space, tending to accelerate the expansion of the Universe. It implies that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. If the standard model of cosmology is precise, the best current measurements suggest that dark energy contributes 69 percent of the total energy in the present-day observable universe.

The constructed map also shows the unique signature of the coherent movement of galaxies toward regions of the Universe with more matter, due to the attractive force of gravity. Natalie Roe, the Physics Division director at Berkeley Lab said that the results from BOSS deliver a solid foundation for even more precise future BAO measurements, such as those they expect from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). This will create a more detailed 3-dimensional map in a volume of space ten times bigger to precisely characterize dark energy--- and ultimately the future of the Universe.