DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys universe mapping

Astronomers and researchers have completed and released the largest two-dimensional color map of the universe to date. The project, part of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, involved a 13-year observation period that combined over 263,000 telescopic images into a single digital rendering of approximately 5.6 trillion pixels.

Covering roughly 75% of the sky using visible and near-infrared light, the atlas catalogs nearly 4 billion celestial objects, including galaxies, stars, quasars, asteroids, and black holes. The mapping effort utilized data from various ground-based programs, such as the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey in Chile and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey in Arizona, supplemented by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

To create the cohesive map, researchers employed extensive software calibration to align measurements from different telescopes and years, processing the data via the Perlmutter supercomputer. The resulting dataset serves as a critical tool for identifying targets for future 3D mapping and studying the expansion history of the universe. The information is now freely available to the public and the scientific community through the Legacy Survey Sky Viewer.