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Dark energy camera scans ancient skies

In a Fermilab clean room, Ken Schultz and Kevin Kuk check the alignment of the prototype camera's front window.

In a Fermilab clean room, Ken
Schultz and Kevin Kuk check the
alignment of the prototype
camera's front window.

Technicians at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are assembling a camera that will take pictures of the universe not only as we see it today but back through time, closer to when the universe began. Mounted on the Blanco telescope in Chile, the Dark Energy Camera will capture images of roughly 300 million galaxies, allowing scientists to see galaxies as they were when the universe was only a few billion years old. Cooled to minus 100 degrees Celsius to reduce background noise, the camera’s superb charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, will record longer wavelengths of light than any other optical camera. The goal is to search for signs of dark energy, the ubiquitous, invisible substance believed to make up 70 percent of the universe.

[Kurt Riesselmann, 630.840.5681,
kurtr@fnal.gov]