Largest 2D Map of the Universe Released: 5.6 Trillion Pixels, 4 Billion Objects
Scientists release biggest 2D map of the universe
The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has released the largest 2D color map of the universe, containing 5.6 trillion pixels and nearly 4 billion celestial objects. Built from over 263,000 telescope exposures, the map covers 75% of the sky and is publicly accessible. It will serve as a foundation for the DESI 3D survey and future telescopes, aiding research on dark matter, dark energy, and rare phenomena.
It's part of the fabric of astronomy research now. When you're working with astronomical objects today, you often start by pulling up the Legacy Imaging Viewer to see what you're looking at.
- anigbrowl
Researchers expect it will remain the most comprehensive 2D map of our universe for years to come.
Most likely. I doubt there is going to be any serious investment in astronomy over the next decade given economic headwinds and a deteriorating strategic situation. The big money will be going into defense and economic sovereignty and building/launching new high powered telescopes will not be a priority. Optical/sensor advances will be prioritized for earth observation (commercial, military, or weather/climate) and it maybe that we're in an era of diminishing technological returns already.
I do expect a lot of analytical advances thanks to the combination of open datasets and AI, although it seems more likely that most of these will be in stamp collecting - interesting astronomical facts for people who are already interested in astronomy. Hard to guess if we will see challenges to prevailing cosmological theories.
- flockonus
I knew the universe was nothing but a brick wall, now we have proof!
https://viewer.legacysurvey.org/?ra=80.3728&dec=-69.4497&lay...
/jk
- KaiMagnus
I've got some crazy feelings browsing this.
Are there any particularily detailed areas? But maybe the humbling reality is just: The closer we look, the more galaxies appear where we thought was black void…
- doodlebugging
That's impressive. Though I think there's too much space on this plane. I'm wondering whether it is actually a 2D view since it obviously isn't planar.
To paraphrase Samuel L Jackson - "I have had it with this m'f'ing space on a plane! Everybody strap in I'm about to open some f'in' windows."
Proceeds to crank open an array of telescopes to get another 3D perspective of a 4D universe so we can project it onto our 2D viewing devices as if that were reality.
- hn_throwaway_99
I read the article but didn't watch the videos yet, but I'm curious as to what would be needed to make this a 3D map. That is, I'm assuming this 2D map records the position of all of these objects in the sky, but not the distance from Earth. But I thought that calculating the distance of objects is relatively straightforward, e.g. you hear all the time "Galaxy X is 2 billion lightyears away" or whatever. Would it just be really computationally expensive to calculate the distance to all of the 4 billion objects identified in the map?