The largest 3D map of the universe ever created has just confirmed Einstein’s theories. This map helps scientists understand how the universe has expanded over billions of years.
What they found shows that, once again, Einstein was right, and his theories continue to guide our understanding of the cosmos.
Researchers just shared their first-year findings, adding exciting new pieces to the puzzle of how the universe began, evolved, and where it’s headed.
Exploring the Universe’s Past with 5,000 Tiny Robots
Scientists can now look 11 billion years into the past with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a telescope equipped with 5,000 tiny robots. By capturing light from distant space objects, DESI helps map the universe as it was when it was young, showing how it grew into what we see today.
This incredible project has created the largest 3D map of the cosmos and offers the most precise measurements yet. For the first time, scientists can measure how the universe expanded with accuracy better than 1%, revealing clues about dark energy—the mysterious force driving the universe to expand faster and faster.
Einstein Was Right—Even on a Cosmic Scale
You’ve probably heard of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Scientists just confirmed it works in our solar system and the entire universe.
By studying how galaxies formed and evolved, researchers showed that gravity behaves just as Einstein predicted, even at vast cosmic scales.
This finding supports our main understanding of the universe and narrows down alternative theories, like modified gravity, which explain why the universe is expanding faster and faster—a mystery often linked to dark energy. So far, Einstein’s ideas are holding strong!
Does Our Universe’s Model Need an Update?
The leading model for how the universe works is called Lambda CDM. It combines dark energy (which speeds up expansion) and dark matter (which slows it down) to explain how the cosmos evolves. So far, it matches most of what scientists observe about the universe’s past and present.
“Dark matter accounts for roughly a quarter of the universe, while dark energy makes up 70 percent, yet we still don’t fully understand either,” explained Mark Maus, a PhD student at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley involved in theory and validation modeling for the new analysis.
“It’s incredible that we can capture images of the universe and address such profound, fundamental questions.” (ref)
But DESI’s early data shows small differences from what this model predicts. As DESI continues its five-year survey, researchers hope to confirm whether these differences hint at new ideas about the universe or just need finer measurements.
The data will also help refine key mysteries, like how fast the universe expands today (the Hubble constant) and the mass of neutrinos, tiny but important particles.
Mapping the Universe Like Never Before
Using light from nearly 6 million galaxies and quasars, DESI has looked 11 billion years into the past to create the most detailed 3D map of the universe yet. With just one year of data, DESI has already surpassed results that took decades to compile in previous studies.
The latest analysis builds on earlier findings, revealing new details about how galaxies and matter are distributed across space. (ref) It also suggests dark energy—the mysterious force driving the universe’s expansion—might be changing over time. To ensure unbiased results, researchers used a hidden technique that builds anticipation for the next analysis.
DESI is a global team of over 900 researchers from 70+ institutions, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
DESI, located on the 4-meter Mayall Telescope in Arizona, is now in its fourth year of a five-year project. By 2025, it will have mapped about 40 million galaxies, providing even more precise insights into the universe’s expansion and dark energy. Stay tuned for updates in spring 2025.
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Each Einstein quote invites you to question the ordinary and embrace new perspectives—our imagination and curiosity are just as important as knowledge.
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Nancy Maffia
Nancy received a bachelor’s in biology from Elmira College and a master’s degree in horticulture and communications from the University of Kentucky. Worked in plant taxonomy at the University of Florida and the L. H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University, and wrote and edited gardening books at Rodale Press in Emmaus, PA. Her interests are plant identification, gardening, hiking, and reading.
