BU professor and graduate student involved in DESI creation
The Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona began its exploration of space using glass photographic plates to record images in 1973. On February 12th, researchers began reconfiguring the telescope to prepare for the installation of the 9-ton Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). With DESI, the Mayall telescope will become a unique instrument that will enable a view of the Universe at a scale unlike anything seen before. It will measure the three-dimensional locations of 35 million galaxies with unprecedented precision. It is expected that data from DESI will help identify the nature of a mysterious component of the Universe known as Dark Energy, which seems to cause the Universe to expand at an increasingly faster rate.
The DESI collaboration consists of about 465 researchers from about 71 institutions, including BU. The BU effort, led by Professor of Physics Steve Ahlen, has been responsible for the manufacture of a number of parts used for the construction of DESI. The most important of these is the focal plate structure, which is required to mount 5,000 light sensors in high-precision holes. The focal plate structure was built in the BU Scientific Instrument Facility (SIF) under the direction of Operations Manager Heitor Mourato. Physics Graduate Student Yutong Duan managed and analyzed the measurements of all critical dimensions of the focal plate structure with a commercial Coordinate Measuring Machine.
Installation of DESI will begin soon, and will be done by April 2019. The first science observations are planned to begin in September 2019 and to continue for five years.