Projects

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astrophysics through the direct detection of these waves, predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

The fifth Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V) is an all-sky, multi-epoch spectroscopic survey that will yield optical and infrared spectra of over 6 million objects during its five-year lifetime (2020–2025).

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new-generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) observatory being built in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It will enable scientists to tackle questions on the primordial universe, neutrino physics, cosmological constant and dark energy, as well as galaxy evolution.

The five-year Simulating Multiscale Astrophysics to Understand Galaxies (SMAUG) project will improve our understanding of baryonic processes in galaxy formation so that we can greatly reduce the associated uncertainties now present in astrophysical measurements of neutrino masses, dark matter and dark energy.

The Terra Hunting Experiment (THE) is a project to discover Earth-mass planets in Earth-like orbits around sun-like stars. It will deploy a new state-of-the-art spectrograph that can determine velocities of stars (Doppler shifts) at precisions measured in centimeters per second.