Carnegie Mellon University
November 14, 2016

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Hack Week at Carnegie Mellon

Hack WeekWhile the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is being built in Chile, researchers from around the world are working hard to develop the research infrastructure that they will need to interpret the vast amounts of data that the telescope will create as it surveys the sky over the course of 10 years. The LSST’s decade-long survey will map tens of billions of stars and galaxies. The unprecedented data set created by the telescope will allow scientists to determine the properties of dark energy and dark matter and the composition and history of our galaxy and solar system.

To expedite research progress toward using LSST data to measure dark energy, 65 faculty, post-docs and graduate students from around the world came to Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus for the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Hack Week on Nov. 7-11. Hack Week was organized by McWilliams Center for Cosmology researcher and Associate Professor of Physics Rachel Mandelbaum (pictured at the right). Mandelbaum is a member of the leadership team of the DESC and also chairs its collaboration meeting committee.