From National Geographic, September 28, 2021: Recently, Fermilab ran over 200 computers to analyze Dark Energy Survey images that helped identify a new comet called the Bernardinelli-Bernstein. It is estimated the nucleus of the comet is about 93 miles wide, the biggest size estimate for a comet in decades.
Dark Energy Survey
From Phys.org, August 24, 2021: Using the powerful 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) created and tested by Fermilab for the DES, astronomers have discovered an asteroid with the shortest orbital period of any known asteroid in the Solar System.
From NOIR Lab, June 25, 2021: The DECam designed, built and tested by Fermilab and funded by DOE, collected the data that lead to the discovery of a giant comet discovered by two astronomers from the University of Pennsylvania.
From NSF’s NOIRLab, June 8, 2021: The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) built and tested by Fermilab, one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world, has taken its one-millionth exposure. DECam’s million exposures include science observations as well as test and calibration exposures taken by the camera while it was being fine-tuned after its construction and installation on the Blanco telescope in 2012.
To tackle big questions about our universe, the Dark Energy Survey uses a powerful 570-megapixel camera to photograph galaxies close to home and billions of light years away. The analysis of the first three years of data resulted in the largest maps ever made showing the distribution and shapes of galaxies in our universe — and provided a fantastic test for scientist’s best predictions.
The Dark Energy Survey collaboration has created the largest ever maps of the distribution and shapes of galaxies, tracing both ordinary and dark matter in the universe out to a distance of over 7 billion light years. The analysis, which includes the first three years of data from the survey, is consistent with predictions from the current best model of the universe, the standard cosmological model. Nevertheless, there remain hints from DES and other experiments that matter in the current universe is a few percent less clumpy than predicted.
From the University of Chicago, May 21, 2021: Long-time University of Chicago professor of astronomy and astrophysics, Richard Kron created the Sloan Digital Sky Survey which set the stage for the Dark Energy Survey. Although he is retiring this year after 40 years of mapping the universe, he plans on staying on as director of the Dark Energy Survey.
A physicist making great advances in particle detector technology, Estrada is recognized by the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields for his creation and development of novel applications for CCD technology that probe wide-ranging areas of particle physics, including cosmology, dark matter searches, neutrino detection and quantum imaging.
From UChicago News, Feb. 12, 2021: Fermilab scientist Yuanyuan Zhang discusses the implications of the studies she led on intracluster light using Dark Energy Survey data, which may include a new way of measuring dark matter.
From The University of Chicago Physical Sciences, Feb. 8, 2021: Fermilab scientist Richard Kron is retiring from the University of Chicago. He co-founded the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which created the most detailed 3-D maps of the universe and recorded the spectra for more than 3 million astronomical objects. His approach influenced the Dark Energy Survey, which created one of the most accurate dark matter maps of the universe and which Kron will continue to direct.