The August 2015 issue of Astronomy takes readers inside “Kitt Peak Observatory’s second chance at life,” which is banking on a powerful tool called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. Astronomers hope this intense survey will help them study one of the most mysterious forces known, dark energy, and lead to a better understanding of cosmic structure thanks to sound waves from the beginning of time. Finding the remains of these ripples, called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), will give them a cosmic ruler to measure the distance between galaxies.
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