There you have it! 5.6 trillion pixels. Nearly 4 billion objects. 75% of the entire sky. And it c…
September 7, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
Defense
There you have it! 5.6 trillion pixels. Nearly 4 billion objects. 75% of the entire sky. And it cost you money — the good kind.
The DESI collaboration just released the largest 2D map of the universe ever built. Stars, galaxies, black holes, asteroids. Free. Public. No paywall.
160-plus scientists. 13 years. Built on a 4-meter telescope in the Arizona desert, funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
I spend most of my time on here yelling about taxpayer waste. The Pentagon can't pass an audit. Roughly 80% of what the Department of War spends never turns into anything a warfighter can use.
So forgive me for enjoying this one.
For once, your tax dollars didn't buy a $10,000 PowerPoint deck or a program that ships four years late missing half its features. They bought a map of the universe — and then handed it to everyone.
Type in coordinates. Or just scroll. You are looking at the exact same imaging professional astronomers use every day. 1,800 scientific papers already cite it.
Arjun Dey, one of the project leads, put it perfectly: "the skies belong to everyone, and this survey gives everyone the chance to marvel at their wonders."
THAT is what public money is supposed to do.
More of this. A lot less of the other thing.
Read it here: https://lnkd.in/evzXTjRj
What would you go look at first?
The DESI collaboration just released the largest 2D map of the universe ever built. Stars, galaxies, black holes, asteroids. Free. Public. No paywall.
160-plus scientists. 13 years. Built on a 4-meter telescope in the Arizona desert, funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
I spend most of my time on here yelling about taxpayer waste. The Pentagon can't pass an audit. Roughly 80% of what the Department of War spends never turns into anything a warfighter can use.
So forgive me for enjoying this one.
For once, your tax dollars didn't buy a $10,000 PowerPoint deck or a program that ships four years late missing half its features. They bought a map of the universe — and then handed it to everyone.
Type in coordinates. Or just scroll. You are looking at the exact same imaging professional astronomers use every day. 1,800 scientific papers already cite it.
Arjun Dey, one of the project leads, put it perfectly: "the skies belong to everyone, and this survey gives everyone the chance to marvel at their wonders."
THAT is what public money is supposed to do.
More of this. A lot less of the other thing.
Read it here: https://lnkd.in/evzXTjRj
What would you go look at first?