A deep look at the universe connext networkThe Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is atop the National Science Foundation’s Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The instrument’s 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” and extensive surveying capabilities are enabling scientists to build one of the largest 3D maps of the universe and track how dark energy has influenced and shaped the cosmos over the past 11 billion years.It takes time for the light from celestial objects like galaxies to travel to Earth, which means that DESI can effectively see what the cosmos was like at different points in time, from billions of years ago to the present.“DESI is unlike any other machine in terms of its ability to observe independent objects simultaneously,” said John Moustakas, a professor of physics at Siena College and colead of the data release.The newest findings include data on more than double the cosmic objects that were surveyed and presented less than a year ago. Those 2024 revelations first hinted at how dark energy may be evolving.“We’re in the business of letting the universe tell us how it works, and maybe the universe is telling us it’s more complicated than we thought it was,” said Andrei Cuceu, a postdoctoral researcher at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which manages DESI, and cochair of DESI’s Lyman-alpha working group, in a statement. “It’s interesting and gives us more confidence to see that many different lines of evidence are pointing in the same direction.”