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Article: Vanderbilt astronomers participate in new search for dark energy.
- Article from:
- NewsRx Health & Science
- Article date:
- October 25, 2009
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The most ambitious attempt yet to trace the history of the universe has seen "first light." The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), took its first astronomical data on the night of Sept. 14-15 at the Sloan Foundation telescope in New Mexico.
The goal of the six-year project is to measure the spectra of 1.4 million galaxies and 160,000 quasars, extremely distant objects that shine more brightly than entire galaxies. The previous sky survey (SDSS-II) determined the two-dimensional position of these objects in the sky. The new project will measure their distance, allowing astronomers to produce a ...