From 365 Days of Astronomy, Jan. 12, 2019: The Dark Energy Survey is the subject of this 30-minute podcast. DES started in 2013 to map dark energy over 5000 square degrees of sky. It used a massive 500-megapixel camera attached to the Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The survey concluded on Jan. 9, 2019, with its last night of observing. At the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, they conferenced with observers on the last night. Listen to the conversation at the end of this journey.
In the news
From Live Science, Jan. 12, 2019: In the 1920s, careful and detailed observations of those decays found tiny, niggling discrepancies. The total energy at the start of certain decay processes was a tiny bit greater than the energy coming out. The math didn’t add up. Odd. So, a few physicists concocted a brand-new particle out of whole cloth: A little, neutral one. A neutrino.
From University of Chicago, Jan. 9, 2019: After scanning about a quarter of the southern skies over 800 nights, the Dark Energy Survey finished taking data on Jan. 9. It ends as one of the most sensitive and comprehensive surveys of its kind, recording data from more than 300 million distant galaxies. Fermilab, an affiliate of the University of Chicago, served as lead laboratory on the survey, which included more than 400 scientists and 26 institutions.
From Republica, Jan. 9, 2019: Los astrofísicos que han participado en el proyecto Dark Energy Survey han finalizado hoy la toma de datos para cartografiar con un detalle sin precedentes una octava parte del cielo, tras seis años de trabajos en los que han acumulado datos de más de 300 millones de galaxias lejanas.
From, El Dia, Jan. 9, 2019: El trabajo fue po astrofísicos del proyecto Dark Energy Survey, tras seis años de observación en los que acumularon información de más de 300 millones de galaxias lejanas.
From insideHPC, Jan. 9, 2019: After scanning in depth about a quarter of the southern skies for six years and cataloging hundreds of millions of distant galaxies, the Dark Energy Survey finishes taking data on Jan. 9. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois will continue refining and serving this data for use by scientists into 2021.
From estrella digital, Jan. 9, 2019: Los astrofísicos que han participado en el proyecto Dark Energy Survey han finalizado hoy la toma de datos para cartografiar con un detalle sin precedentes una octava parte del cielo, tras seis años de trabajos en los que han acumulado datos de más de 300 millones de galaxias lejanas.
From Quanta, Jan. 9, 2019: Fermilab scientist Alex Drlica-Wagner comments on dark matter in this article on a paradoxical problem in astronomy: New surveys have allowed astronomers to find more satellite galaxies that had previously been hidden. At the same time, updated computer simulations predicted the existence of far fewer galaxies than their predecessors did.
From CNN, Jan. 3, 2019: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln discusses NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and Ultima Thule, a frigid, snowman-shaped block of ice located about 4 billion miles from the sun.
From the Associated Press, Dec. 19, 2018: Fermilab’s second director, Leon Lederman, appears in this “in memoriam” list for 2018.