U astronomers will participate in a project to predict the fate of the universe through understanding the “dark energy” that expands the universe.
Adam Bolton and Kyle Dawson,  both professors of physics and astronomy, will collaborate on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). The survey will begin in Aug. 2014 and conclude in July 2020.
There are three detailed parts of the study. The eBOSS study will focus on cosmology and dark energy, the MaNGA component will investigate galaxies near the Milky Way and APOGEE-2 will study individual stars within the galaxy. All three programs in the study will start at the same time.
Bolton said that the goal of the study is to acquire knowledge about the fate of the universe and better understand the place of the Milky Way within it.
“Depending on the nature of dark energy, the future expansion of the universe may look like the present expansion, or it may accelerate dramatically. In the extreme case, all galaxies other than our own Milky Way and its near neighbors could be pushed out of view and we would be left in a true ‘island universe,’ ” Bolton said.
In order to better understand dark energy, the astronomers will sample over one million galaxies and quasars that came into existence 2 to 9 billion years after the Big Bang. The 7 billion year period covers about half of the total age of the universe. The astronomers will use what they learn about the galaxies to make a 3D map of the universe. They hope that learning more about dark energy will help them to unravel the laws of physics that formed today’s universe.
“Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology, and the laws of dark energy play a major role in determining how that 3D map of galaxies and quasars will appear,” Dawson said. “However, the dark energy is not directly related to developing the universe.”
Bolton said that experiments like this will pave the way for more ambitious space telescope projects. These experiments could lead to new technological developments in space systems. Even though dark energy will not affect the earth’s immediate future, understanding it could lead to a fundamental advance in the current theories about the nature of the universe and time.
“This is an extremely exciting time to be working in the field of cosmology,” Bolton said. “For the first time in the history of humanity, we have a nearly complete picture of the evolution of the universe and its contents, and we have the experimental capabilities to refine this picture even further.”