Tides will ‘contribute to the most precise measurements of the effects of dark energy on the cosmic expansion rate’, said the project’s lead.
Astrophysicists from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) are leading a project to better understand the mysterious ‘dark energy’ that makes up around two-thirds of the universe while also being responsible for accelerating its expansion.
According to NASA, we don’t know what dark energy actually is – but we know it exists. It was officially discovered in the 1990s, but studies from decades earlier had pointed towards its existence. Some studies say that black holes could explain this dark energy.
The TCD-led project, called Time Domain Extragalactic Survey (Tides), will utilise the new four-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) facility installed on the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. VISTA stands for Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy.
This past weekend, 4MOST captured its ‘first light’ – or the first practical use since being constructed – marking the official entry into its scientific journey.
4MOST does not just take images of the sky. Instead, it captures the light of each object in every individual colour, meaning it can unravel the light of 2,400 celestial objects simultaneously into 18,000 colour components, allowing astronomers to study their details chemical composition and properties.
Taking 15 years to develop, the telescope is the largest multi-object spectroscopic survey facility in the southern hemisphere. It has been designed to operate for at least the next 15 years.
Tides is one of the main surveys to be carried out with 4MOST. The project will also utilise the US National Science Foundation and Department of Energy-led Vera C Rubin Observatory (Rubin).
Every time 4MOST observes, Tides will use a handful of its fibres to observe recently discovered “transient” objects discovered in Rubin’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a 10-year study of the southern night sky.
“Tides will transform our understanding of how stars evolve and die, and contribute to the most precise measurements of the effects of dark energy on the cosmic expansion rate and the fundamental make up of our universe,” said Prof Kate Maguire from TCD’s School of Physics, who leads Tides as its principal investigator.
The project is made up of dozens of scientists from across the world, including six from TCD.
“It’s a big challenge to handle the very large data stream from Rubin and 4MOST, and we have had to develop novel techniques to make the most of some of the incredible technologies at hand,” she said.
“Ultimately we are pursuing first-of-its-kind research that will add to our understanding of some of the most important and fundamental processes at play in the universe.”
Dr Tomás Müller-Bravo, another researcher in TCD’s School of Physics, is active on the Tides software design for finding and tracking space activities.
He said: “I’m really excited that 4MOST will soon start obtaining this revolutionary dataset, which will help us better understand how stars explode and address the origin of the mysterious quantity, dark energy.”
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