“After 20 years of research, scientists have released a highly detailed 3D map of the universe. Here’s an overview of the new map.”

Scientists have been studying the universe for decades. Recently, they presented a new, detailed analysis based on the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), a major project within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) collaboration. This effort, involving over 100 astrophysicists worldwide, has produced one of the most extensive 3D maps of the universe to date.

Researchers have figured out how the universe looked soon after the Big Bang and are aware of its expansion over the last few billion years; however, the gap in the middle 11 billion years has been a mystery for a long time.

After 5 years of tremendous effort, scientists have managed to fill this mysterious, yet significant gap.

“We know both the ancient history of the Universe and its recent expansion history fairly well, but there’s a troublesome gap in the middle 11 billion years. For five years, we have worked to fill in that gap, and we are using that information to provide some of the most substantial advances in cosmology in the last decade,” said cosmologist Kyle Dawson of the University of Utah, announcing the news.

During the most recent studies, scientists have managed to fill in missing details of the story of the expansion of the universe. The new map encompasses 11 billion years (out of 13.8 billion) of the universe’s history.

“Taken together, detailed analyses of the eBOSS map and the earlier SDSS experiments have now provided the most accurate expansion history measurements over the widest-ever range of cosmic time,” says Will Percival of the University of Waterloo, eBOSS’s Survey Scientist.