Astronomers Release the Largest 3-D Cosmic Map, Open to the Public

After five years of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument on a remote mountain in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, astronomers have assembled the most detailed three-dimensional map of the cosmos to date. The map spans roughly three-quarters of the sky, records both visible and near-infrared light, and contains 5.6 trillion pixels that document about 4 billion celestial objects, from stars to black holes.

The dataset is now publicly available through the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys online viewer, enabling anyone to examine the universe’s structure. More than 160 scientists participated, and the survey has already underpinned over 1,800 scientific papers. A companion map released earlier this year plotted distances to 47 million galaxies and quasars, reconstructing 11 billion years of cosmic evolution and offering a clearer view of dark energy’s influence.

Preliminary analyses suggest dark energy may be weakening over time, a hypothesis to be tested when the full five-year data are released in 2027. Future work will integrate DESI’s findings with missions such as NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and employ artificial-intelligence tools to accelerate analysis of the petabyte-scale dataset.