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Dark Energy Survey @TheDESurvey
#DESimages (credit: Erin Sheldon) https://t.co/y3wHYxFutB

5h reply retweet favorite 5 hours ago

Dark Energy Survey @TheDESurvey
This week for DES, I'm working on calculating the rate of superluminous supernovae. These are a relatively new type… https://t.co/Ae1s8qbsNm

Oct 12 reply retweet favorite 4 days ago

Dark Energy Survey @TheDESurvey
During observing, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) uses a system to pick out bright stars, which precisely define whe… https://t.co/42OUdE5ncN

Oct 10 reply retweet favorite 6 days ago

Dark Energy Survey @TheDESurvey
#DESimages (credit: Erin Sheldon) https://t.co/vCm77kI8AJ

Oct 08 reply retweet favorite 1 week ago

Dark Energy Survey @TheDESurvey
"What a thrill it has been to work with this star; we expect he will continue to play a leading role within DES and… https://t.co/OEbDiCeoGJ

Oct 04 reply retweet favorite 2 weeks ago

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The Dark Energy Survey
5 hours ago
#DESimages (credit: Erin Sheldon) ... See MoreSee Less
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The Dark Energy Survey
4 days ago
This week for DES, I'm working on calculating the rate of superluminous supernovae. These are a relatively new type of supernova which shine up to 100 times brighter than normal supernova types. #DEST4TD

Thanks to Benjamin Thomas (University of Portsmouth) for today's DES thought for the day!

You can read more about a DES discovery of a superluminous supernova here: www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-superluminous-supernova-seen-more-than-10-billion-light-years-away ... See MoreSee Less
A superluminous supernova seen more than 10 BILLION light years away!
syfy.com
Astronomers have found one of the most distant exploding stars ever seen — the light from the colossal event took a staggering 10 billion years to travel across the Universe to reach us! And, like s...
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The Dark Energy Survey
6 days ago
During observing, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) uses a system to pick out bright stars in its field of view, which precisely define where it is looking on the sky. These are called ‘guide stars’. I just realized that now over a million guide stars have been used by DECam! #DEST4TD

(Image: An example of 4 guide stars being viewed while the telescope is taking an image.)

Thanks to Santiago Serrano (Universitat de Barcelona) for today's DES thought for the day! ... See MoreSee Less
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The Dark Energy Survey
1 week ago
#DESimages (credit: Erin Sheldon) ... See MoreSee Less
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The Dark Energy Survey
2 weeks ago
What a thrill it has been to work with this star; we expect he will continue to play a leading role within DES and the broader community. #DEST4TD

(Picture: Outgoing Director Josh Frieman at the Texas Meeting this year)

Thanks to Scott Dodelson (Carnegie Mellon University) for today's DES thought for the day! ... See MoreSee Less
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News

Dark Energy May Be Incompatible With String Theory

August 9, 2018 12:00 am

Since 1998, telescope observations have indicated that the cosmos is expanding ever-so-slightly faster all the time, implying that the vacuum of empty space must be infused with a dose of gravitationally repulsive “dark energy.” In addition, it looks like the amount of dark energy infused in empty space stays constant over time (as best anyone can tell). But the new conjecture asserts that the vacuum energy of the universe must be decreasing. Paul Steinhardt, a cosmologist at Princeton University and one of Vafa’s co-authors, said that over the next few years, “all eyes should be on” measurements by the Dark Energy Survey, WFIRST and Euclid telescopes of whether the density of dark energy is changing. “If you find it’s not consistent with quintessence,” Steinhardt said, “it means either the swampland idea is wrong, or string theory is wrong, or both are wrong or — something’s wrong.”

The dark-energy deniers

June 19, 2018 12:00 am

Make no mistake, dark energy – be it the cosmological constant or quintessence – is the leading theory with plenty of observational evidence to support it. The alternatives remain highly controversial. Yet those nagging questions just won’t go away. Upcoming surveys will either solidify dark energy theory’s position further, or produce a surprise by pulling the rug out from under it. With the Dark Energy Survey – an international collaboration using a 570-million-pixel camera called DECam on the Blanco 4 m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile – releasing its first data from a survey of 300 million galaxies, these are exciting times. “What makes this a really fun field to be in is that I don’t know what the next big step will be,” concludes Riess. “We’re just in the middle of our initial reconnaissance, and I don’t think we should be surprised by surprises.”

Simon Samuroff receives URA Thesis Award for Dark Energy Survey image analysis

June 1, 2018 12:00 am

The Dark Energy Survey captures images of galaxies billions of light-years away to help our understanding of the evolution of the cosmos. Assessing these galaxies’ properties, such as their size, shape and distance from each other, is a painstaking process, one that involves not only collecting massive amounts of data, but also correcting for potential miscues that challenge the very act of assessing the data. The Fermilab-led Dark Energy Survey aims to make unprecedented measurements of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Gravity bends light produced by faraway galaxies, so images of galaxies are subtly distorted by the time they reach Earth. The degree of distortion itself can provide information about those galaxies, galaxy clusters and the universe around them. An important step in making accurate measurements of the universe is by successfully isolating these tiny distortions. Simon Samuroff is the recipient of the 2017 URA Thesis Award, presented annually for outstanding work by a graduate student working at or in collaboration with Fermilab. In his thesis, titled “Systematic Biases in Weak Lensing Cosmology with the Dark Energy Survey,” Samuroff built computer simulations to model the shapes of galaxies captured by the Dark Energy Camera, which was built by Fermilab and is located at an observatory on a Chilean mountaintop. He closely compared thousands of the simulations to actual images to determine the amount by which scientists’ initial estimates of these distortions are incorrect. He singled out miscues so the Dark Energy Camera could make improved measurements and be more sensitive to subtle effects of phenomena such as dark matter. “The committee was impressed by both the quality of writing and the magnitude of his study — cataloging millions of galaxies or clusters and taking very small effects into account,” said Fermilab scientist Lenny Spiegel, chair of the URA Thesis Award Committee. “His work is invaluable to scientists studying mysteries regarding astrophysics, which may ultimately point the direction for future progress in particle physics.” One of Samuroff’s major results showed that interactions between the images of neighboring galaxies that overlapped affected scientists’ measurements more severely than they realized. By identifying where and to what degree distortions like this cause inaccuracies, Samuroff helps scientists create a more reliable system of measurement.

KBO could be evidence for a giant planet in the outer solar system

May 31, 2018 12:00 am

The discovery of a distant Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) with an extremely eccentric orbit could be evidence that a giant planet is waiting to be discovered in the outer solar system. KBO BP519 was discovered by scientists analyzing data collected by the Dark Energy Survey, which observes a region far above the orbital plane of most of the solar system’s planets as part of a project to measure acceleration of the universe’s expansion. It orbits the Sun at a tilt of some 54 degrees from the plane of the inner solar system planets’ orbits. Like several other KBOs found in 2016, which all orbit at the same unique angle to the plane of the inner planets, 2015 BP519’s position suggests it is being influenced by the gravitational pull of a much larger object, sometimes referred to as “Planet X” or “Planet Nine,” which may be shepherding it and the other above KBOs into this strange orbit. Since the 2016 discovery of these KBOs orbiting at the same distinct angle, scientists have been searching for a hypothesized large planet influencing their orbits, which could be either a super-Earth or a gas giant. One possibility is 2015 BP519, described as “the most extreme Trans-Neptunian Object discovered to date,” is actually a moon of the large planet, which some astronomers estimate to be ten times as massive as the Earth.

‘Nova Wonders’ Asks ‘What’s the Universe Made Of’ Tonight

May 30, 2018 12:00 am

When gravitational-wave detectors recorded a distant collision of two neutron stars, astronomers around the world got the call and began to search for visible evidence of the crash. A team in Chile from the Dark Energy Survey — as well as other groups — was able to detect the so-called kilonova's light, providing the first-ever observations of both light and gravitational waves from the same cosmic explosion. For the Dark Energy Survey crew, these observations will help gauge the universe's expansion rate, aiding their investigation into the mysterious dark energy pushing the universe apart. "What's the Universe Made Of" digs deep into two cosmic mysteries — dark matter and dark energy — showing how researchers know those entities exist, but also revealing that they are still trying to learn what they're made of and how they work.

© 2018 The Dark Energy Survey