DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys releases largest 2D universe map

The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has released the largest two-dimensional color map of the universe ever assembled. The 5.6-trillion-pixel atlas catalogs nearly 4 billion celestial objects, including stars, galaxies, black holes, and asteroids.

Covering approximately 75% of the sky in visible and near-infrared light, the dataset was developed through a collaboration involving the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NSF NOIRLab. The project utilized data from multiple ground-based programs, including the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey in Chile, the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, and the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey. These observations were supplemented by data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Creating the cohesive map required extensive software calibration to align measurements taken across different telescopes and years. The processing was completed using the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. The dataset is now freely available to the public through the Legacy Survey Sky Viewer.