South Pole Telescope to Probe "Dark Energy"

A team of astronomers, including the University of Illinois' own Joe Mohr, have recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to construct a telescope at the South Pole to explore the recent discovery that the expansion of the Universe may be accelerating due to a phenomenon called "dark energy". Previous cosmological theories held that the expansion of the Universe should be slowing due to gravity.

John Carlstrom of the University of Chicago is the principal investigator of the project, which includes co-principal investigators from the University of Illinois, University of California Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The telescope will be 8 meters in diameter and will be used to make the most precise, high resolution map of the cosmic microwave background to date. This map will cover 10% of the sky and will measure temperature differences as small as 10 millionths of a degree on 1 arcminute scales.

For more information, the official press release can be found here. Articles from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times are also available.