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Yushan Young Fellow, Assistant Professor Andrew Cooper from the Institute of Astronomy at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) and another Yushan Young Fellow, Assistant Professor Ting-Wen Lan (藍鼎文) from the Institute of Astrophysics at National Taiwan University (NTU) involved in a project called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which brings together over 70 research institutions and hundreds of scientists and engineers from many countries. Today, they have made their first 2 million observations freely available for every astronomer in the world to explore.

Dr. Cooper said that, over the last 30 years, astronomers have discovered that the expansion of our universe is speeding up. This mysterious acceleration cannot be explained by any known physics. Scientists call this cosmic question mark “Dark Energy.” To learn more about Dark Energy, an international team of researchers have collaborated to build a powerful new device called DESI at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona. After 10 years of planning and construction, DESI embarked on a mission to map the cosmos in 2021.

Assistant Professor Ting-Wen Lan (藍鼎文) from the Institute of Astrophysics at National Taiwan University (NTU). He was responsible for coordinating a team of dozens of scientists to ensure that the DESI data were up to scratch. According to Dr. Lan, the information from DESI's measurements is more than 99% accurate.



NTHU Assistant Prof. Andrew Cooper (right) and NTU Assistant Prof. Ting-wen Lan (藍鼎文) both participate in the DESI project.

For more complete information about the DESI data, please visit: https://data.desi.lbl.gov/doc/

For more detailed, please see: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/06/16/2003801638