Art of Darkness – Images from the Dark Energy Survey

  • Feb. 19 - April 29, 2016 US/Central
  • Wilson Hall second floor

The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang almost 14 billion years ago. Now, the expansion of the universe is accelerating, driven by a new fundamental form of energy called dark energy.
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a collaboration of more than 400 scientists from over 30 institutions across 7 countries. DES aims to find almost half a billion galaxies, and thousands of exploding stars to measure dark energy to new precision.
DES began taking data in November 2012 and will continue into 2018. The survey uses one of the largest digital cameras in the world. With 570 megapixels, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) was built by members of the DES collaboration and assembled at Fermilab. The camera is mounted to the four-meter Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, high in the Chilean Andes. DES scans the sky with DECam from August to February each year, and astronomers working on other projects use the remaining time.
The DECam images featured in this show were chosen for their beauty more than their scientific characteristics. They are meant to display the power of the camera and to show how fascinating, beautiful and complex the universe is.
Most of the images feature a prominent galaxy, but upon closer inspection you’ll find thousands of other objects in these images. Many of the light sources you see in these images are not single stars-they are actually distant galaxies made of billions of stars each!

For more information and images, please visit http://www.darkenergysurvey.org/

For more information about loaning the exhibit, please visit

http://events.fnal.gov/art-gallery/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ArtofDarkness.compressed.pdf