Last night, the 5,000 fibre-optic ‘eyes’ of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) reached a major milestone, having fully covered the area originally planned for its map of the universe. Thus, DESI’s five-year programme has concluded ahead of schedule and with far more data than expected, resulting in the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever produced. This map will enable researchers to explore dark energy, which accounts for 70% of the universe and drives its accelerated expansion. By comparing how galaxies were distributed in the past with their current

One of the biggest recent surprises in astronomy is the discovery that most stars like the Sun harbor a planet between the size of Earth and Neptune within the orbit of Mercury — sizes and orbits absent from our solar system. These ‘ super-Earths' and ` sub-Neptunes’ are the galaxy's most common planets, but their formation has been shrouded in mystery. Now, an international team of astronomers has found a crucial missing link. By weighing four newborn planets in the V1298 Tau system, they've captured a rare snapshot of worlds in the process of transforming into the galaxy's most common