Largest 2D Map of Universe Released With 5.6 Trillion Pixels

Astronomers have unveiled the largest two-dimensional map of the universe ever created, a monumental dataset that captures nearly four billion celestial objects across roughly three-quarters of the night sky. The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys catalog, released this week, represents the culmination of 13 years of observations and contains a staggering 5.6 trillion pixels, providing an unprecedented view of stars, galaxies, black holes, and asteroids in visible and near-infrared light.

The map was compiled from more than 263,000 telescope exposures gathered by three ground-based surveys: the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey in Chile, the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, and the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey, also at Kitt Peak. Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite mission supplemented the ground-based observations. The project involved more than 160 scientists in data collection, with a core team of 20 producing the final dataset.

"It's part of the fabric of astronomy research now," said David Schlegel, a co-lead of the Legacy Surveys and a scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory....