Zoomed-in image from the Dark Energy Camera of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365, in the Fornax cluster of galaxies, which lies about 60 million light years from Earth. Credit: Dark Energy Survey Collaboration
Light emitted from stars eight billion years ago at the furthest reaches of our universe has been captured and recorded for the first time by the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created.
The Dark Energy Camera is a 570-megapixel camera the size of a telephone box on top of a mountain in Chile. It is the most powerful survey instrument of its kind, able to see light from over 100,000 galaxies up to eight billion light years away in each snapshot, and today scientists announced it had opened its lens for the first time.
The Blanco telescope in Chile as seen from the air. Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF
Astronomers from the University of Portsmouth are among those using this camera to undertake the Dark Energy Survey, an international project to hunt for the mysterious Dark Energy, the unknown source of energy causing galaxies to move apart increasingly faster.
Professor Will Percival, of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, co-coordinates the analysis of galaxy clustering observed in the Dark Energy Survey.
He said: “Today we have seen a distant image of space and time that represents the start of an experiment to answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics – why the expansion of the Universe is speeding up.
“The Dark Energy Camera will provide astronomers from all over the world a powerful new tool to explore the outstanding questions of our time, perhaps the most pressing of which is the nature of Dark Energy.”
Dark Energy Camera telescope simulator at Fermilab. Credit: Fermilab
“This will be the largest galaxy survey of its kind, and the galaxy shapes and positions will tell us a great deal about the nature of the physical process that we call Dark Energy, but do not currently understand.”
The Dark Energy Survey will undertake the largest galaxy survey ever attempted and use that data to study four probes of dark energy, galaxy clusters, supernovae, the large-scale clumping of galaxies, and weak gravitational lensing. This will be the first time all four of these methods will be possible in a single experiment. The survey will also provide important information about the evolution of galaxies throughout the Universe’s history.
Zoomed-in image from the Dark Energy Camera of the center of the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, which lies about 17,000 light years from Earth. Credit: Dark Energy Survey Collaboration
The Dark Energy Camera is the product of eight years of planning and construction by scientists, engineers, and technicians on three continents. The camera’s array of 62 charged-coupled devices have an unprecedented sensitivity to very red light, and along with the Blanco telescope’s large light-gathering mirror (which spans 13 feet across), will allow scientists from around the world to pursue investigations ranging from studies of asteroids in our own Solar System to the understanding of the origins and the fate of the universe.
The Dark Energy Survey is expected to begin in December, after the camera is fully tested, and will take advantage of the excellent atmospheric conditions in the Chilean Andes to deliver pictures with the sharpest resolution seen in a wide-field astronomy survey.
The Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the Blanco telescope in Chile. Credit: Dark Energy Survey Collaboration
The Dark Energy Survey is supported by funding from funding agencies the UK, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and Switzerland, the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the participating DES institutions.
Professor Percival said: “Getting first light through the Dark Energy Camera is a crucial step in this survey, which will enable us to make new discoveries about the Universe. The results of this survey will bring us closer to understanding the mystery of Dark Energy and what it means for the universe.”
To read a background feature about the Dark Energy Survey: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/september-2012/the-dark-energy-camera-opens-its-eyes
To see the first image captured by the Dark Energy Camera: www.ctio.noao.edu
or here:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/
