"5,000 tiny robot arms": How a humble telescope created the largest 3D map of the universe to help unlock dark energy's secrets
Date:
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 03:30:00 +0000
Description:
The DESI project recorded data from 47 million galaxies and quasars and built a 3D map of the universe to help unlock dark energy's secrets.
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now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Largest 3D map built using 47 million
galaxies and quasars Thousands of robotic fiber arms captured light from distant galaxies New data could reshape understanding of dark energy behavio
r Astronomers have completed the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever recorded, after a five-year observing campaign that tracked
tens of millions of galaxies.
The project, known as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI , focuses on understanding dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universes accelerating expansion. The survey exceeded its original targets, recording data from more than 47 million galaxies and quasars instead of the planned 34 million. Researchers also gathered observations from more than 20 million nearby stars to study the structure of the Milky Way. Article continues below You may like Engineers use Unreal Engine to build a simulator for the world's biggest telescope The Seestar S30 Pro is the smart telescope I've been waiting for my whole life here's why Nvidia wants to power the
next generation of data centers in space Tiny robot arms At the center of the project is a system of 5,000 robotic fiber-optic positioners mounted on a telescope in Arizona. These tiny robot arms move into position roughly every 20 minutes, aligning optical fibers to capture faint light from distant galaxies.
That light is then fed into spectrographs that split it into its component colors, allowing scientists to calculate how far away each galaxy lies from Earth. By combining distance measurements with sky positions, the system builds a layered 3D map showing how matter is spread across the universe.
The telescope used for the project is the 4-meter Nicholas U. Mayall
Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Engineers replaced its original camera with DESIs fiber-based system, allowing it to measure thousands of galaxies at once.
DESI was built to study how galaxies cluster across different distances and times. Those patterns act as markers of how quickly the universe expanded in the past, revealing how dark energy influenced cosmic growth over billions of years. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar
Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
Earlier results from the project suggested that dark energy might not behave as a steady force. Instead of remaining constant, early data hinted that its influence could change over time, although researchers caution that
additional data could still alter that conclusion.
Completing the planned map doesn't mark the end of the project. Scientists plan to cover additional regions of the sky and to capture more distant galaxies.
Future observations will also revisit existing areas to gather denser data
and improve the precision of recorded measurements to help researchers test whether earlier hints about changing dark energy persist in the larger dataset.
Via Science.org Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.
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