From DOE, Nov. 20, 2019: Fermilab scientist Antonella Palmese is quoted in this article on scientists’ efforts to get to the bottom of the nature of dark energy. These efforts include the Dark Energy Survey, hosted by Fermilab, and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, on which Fermilab scientists are collaborators.
DESI
Berkeley Lab’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument aimed its robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” at the night sky Oct. 22 to capture the first images showing its unique view of galaxy light. It was the first test DESI with its nearly complete complement of components. Fermilab contributed key elements to DESI, including the corrector barrel, hexapod, cage and CCDs. Fermilab also provided the online databases used for data acquisition and the software for the instrument’s robotic positioners.
It took three sky surveys to prepare for a new project that will create the largest 3-D map of the universe’s galaxies and glean new insights about the universe’s accelerating expansion. This Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project will explore this expansion, driven by a mysterious property known as dark energy, in great detail. The surveys, which wrapped up in March, have amassed images of more than 1 billion galaxies and are essential in selecting celestial objects to target with DESI, now under construction in Arizona.
The optical lenses for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument have seen their first light. Fermilab contributed key components to DESI, including the corrector barrel and its support structures, along with vital software that ensures the instrument’s 5,000 robotic positioners are precisely aligned with their celestial targets.
From Berkeley Lab, Dec. 4, 2018: Key components of Berkeley Lab’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument are installed after months of planning, prep work. A team at Fermilab built the corrector, hexapod, and other top-end support structures. The structures are designed to align the lenses with an accuracy of tens of microns (millionths of a meter) – similar to the width of the thinnest human hair.
These international projects, selected during the process to plan the future of U.S. particle physics, are all set to come online within the next 10 years.
DESI, an instrument to help scientists get to the bottom of the dark energy mystery, is getting a little help from Fermilab.
Installation has begun for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, a next-generation astrophysics tool. Fermilab is managing key parts of the construction of the instrument, which will begin its five-year observation run in 2019.
Powerful survey instruments help us map the sky with incredible precision. But what ensures that the instruments themselves are precisely built?
From Berkeley Lab, Aug. 9, 2016: DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, will measure light from 35 million galaxies to provide new clues about dark energy. Fermilab is a collaborator on the Berkeley Lab project.