eight billion years ago rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to earth that ancient starlight has now found its way to a mountaintop in chile where the newly constructed dark energy camera the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created has captured and recorded it for the first time that light may hold within it the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics why the expansion of the universe is speeding up scientists in the international dark energy survey (des) collaboration which includes astronomers from texas a&m university announced this week that the dark energy camera the product of eight years of planning and construction by scientists engineers and technicians on three continents has achieved first light the first pictures of the southern sky were taken by the 570-megapixel camera on sept 12 the achievement of first light through the dark energy camera begins a significant new era in our exploration of the cosmic frontier said james siegrist united states department of energy (doe) associate director of science for high-energy physics the results of this survey will bring us closer to understanding the mystery of dark energy and what it means for the universe the dark energy camera was constructed at the does fermi national accelerator laboratory (fermilab) in batavia ill and mounted on the victor m blanco telescope at the national science foundations cerro tololo inter-american observatory in chile which is the southern branch of the us national optical astronomy observatory (noao) texas a&m astronomer darren depoy serves as the project scientist for the device roughly the size of a phone booth that will enable astronomers and physicists to probe the mystery of dark energy the force they believe is causing the universe to expand faster and faster the project to design build test and deploy the decam has taken many years and it was exciting to see the instrument take pictures of the sky said depoy who traveled to chile for the groundbreaking first snap i was present in the telescope control room while the first images were obtained the instrument had been installed on the telescope only a short time before and it produced science-quality images very quickly this is a testament to the hard work expertise and enthusiasm of the large group of scientists engineers and technicians who worked on the telescope and instrument over the past many years a key sub-component of the camera a spectrophotometric calibration system known as decal that will allow the camera to obtain very high precision brightness measurements of the objects it sees in the sky was built within texas a&ms charles r 62 and judith g munnerlyn astronomical laboratory directed by depoy the dark energy survey will help us understand why the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing due to gravity said brenna flaugher project manager and scientist at fermilab it is extremely satisfying to see the efforts of all the people involved in this project finally come together the dark energy camera is the most powerful survey instrument of its kind able to see light from more than 100 000 galaxies up to 8 billion light years away in each snapshot the cameras array of 62 charged-coupled devices has an unprecedented sensitivity to very red light and along with the blanco telescopes large light-gathering mirror (which spans 13 feet across) will allow scientists from around the world to pursue investigations ranging from studies of asteroids in our own solar system to the understanding of the origins and the fate of the universe were very excited to bring the dark energy camera online and make it available for the astronomical community through noaos open-access telescope allocation said chris smith director of the cerro-tololo inter-american observatory with it we provide astronomers from all over the world a powerful new tool to explore the outstanding questions of our time perhaps the most pressing of which is the nature of dark energy scientists in the dark energy survey collaboration will use the new camera to carry out the largest galaxy survey ever undertaken and will use that data to carry out four probes of dark energy studying galaxy clusters supernovae the large-scale clumping of galaxies and weak gravitational lensing this will be the first time all four of these methods will be possible in a single experiment we expect decam will have a long and productive life on the telescope depoy said the combination represents a new capability available to the entire astronomical community one that can produce unprecedented science were excited that texas a&m astronomy is part of such a groundbreaking project the dark energy survey is expected to begin in december after the camera is fully tested and will take advantage of the excellent atmospheric conditions in the chilean andes to deliver pictures with the sharpest resolution seen in such a wide-field astronomy survey in just its first few nights of testing the camera has already delivered images with excellent and nearly uniform spatial resolution over five years the survey will create detailed color images of one-eighth of the sky or 5 000 square degrees to discover and measure 300 million galaxies 100 000 galaxy clusters and 4 000 supernovae the dark energy survey is supported by funding from the us department of energy; the national science foundation; funding agencies in the united kingdom spain brazil germany and switzerland; and the participating des institutions including texas a&m university click here to see the first images captured by the dark energy camera for more information about the instrument and telescope go to http://wwwctionoaoedu for more information about the dark energy survey including the list of participating institutions visit the project website at wwwdarkenergysurveyorg for a summary of the major components contributed to the dark energy camera by the participating institutions read this symmetry article to learn more about texas a&m astronomy the dark energy camera the large synoptic survey telescope and other major international projects involving texas a&m astronomers visit astronomy research page ########## about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds premier research institutions texas a&m is a leader in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge in many fields including rigorous scientific and technological disciplines research conducted at texas a&m represents an annual investment of more than $700 million; the university ranks 20th among all us universities and third nationally for universities without a medical school according to the national science foundation research at texas a&m creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://vprtamuedu about fermilab: fermilab americas premier national laboratory for particle physics research is a department of energy national laboratory operated under contract by the fermi research alliance llc the doe office of science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in united states news release courtesy of fermilab all information contained is distributed by fermilab and the national optical astronomy observatory (noao) on behalf of the dark energy survey collaboration noaos facilities in the southern hemisphere are operated under the cerro tololo inter-american observatory headquartered in la serena chile noao is operated by the association of universities for research in astronomy (aura) inc under cooperative agreement with the national science foundation additional information about the project can be found in this previous release which features additional photographs and illustrations -atm- contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr darren depoy (979) 862-2082 or depoy@physicstamuedu