Dark Energy Explorers
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Identify distant galaxies to help measure dark energy when the universe was just ~2-3 billion years old
Learn moreBegin to venture off into the deep depths of space and look at images from our Hobby-Eberly Telescope. You will be working to discover galaxies. You will be the first person to ever see these galaxies!! Check out the 'Fishing for Real Galaxies in a Sea of Noise' workflow. If you're up for the challenge, you will work towards recognizing a true signal and finding the farthest galaxies away!
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Chat with the research team and other volunteers!
Dark Energy Explorers Statistics
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Message from the researcher
With dark energy we know nothing. It may not be dark and it may not be energy. It’s the phrase we use to explain our ignorance.
Dark Energy ExplorersAbout Dark Energy Explorers
The Hobby-Eberly Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is designed to find over one million galaxies that are 9 billion to 11 billion light-years away, yielding the largest map of the universe ever produced. The map will allow HETDEX astronomers to measure how fast the universe was expanding at different times in its history. Changes in the expansion rate will reveal the role of dark energy at different epochs. Various explanations for dark energy predict different changes in the expansion rate, so by providing exact measurements of the expansion, the HETDEX map will eliminate some of the competing ideas. We need your help to identify the signals that are from distant galaxies.