China Released A 10,000-Billion-Pixel Map Of The Universe

On January 14, China announced a cosmic map built on the data from the project Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI).

Accordingly, about 200 researchers and coordinators of the National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) of China and DESO observed galaxies in the visible universe over a course of 6 years. This data was then analyzed to match the images together, forming a huge 2D cosmic map with over 10,000 billion pixels, containing about 2 billion asteroids.

The scientists observed for a total of 1405 nights using three different telescopes on land in addition to the annual data amount collected from space telescopes. As a result, they obtained up to 1 PB of data, which is equivalent to 1000 TB.

In the next 5 years, the research group will create a giant 3D map of the universe by measuring the distance between galaxies and the speed at which they away from us. The map is expected to help uncover mysteries about dark energy.

NAOC Vice-director and DESI member, Zhao Gonbo, said that we know the universe is expanding faster. According to existing theories, the expansion of the universe is boosted by dark energy. However, without knowing the nature of dark energy, how can we study it? Gongbo said that they measured the large redshift of galaxies and the 3D distribution of cosmic material.

Recently, a galaxy map was introduced by Japanese astronomers, which shows that the Solar system is only 25,800 lightyears away from the Galactic Center. This distance is much smaller than the 27,700-lightyear distance accepted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1985.

Nevertheless, this change doesn’t mean the Earth is getting closer to the Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A* whose mass is 4 million times that of the Sun, located in the Galactic Center. Instead, the new galaxy map helps us locate the Solar system more accurately in relation to other stars.

According to the latest estimates by Japanese astronomers, the spinning speed of the Solar system around the Galactic Center is also higher than previous estimates. Specifically, the Solar system is moving at 227km/h, 7km faster than the current speed announced by the IAU.

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