A powerful combination of data from two very different astronomical surveys has allowed researchers to build a "cosmic CT scan" of the universe's evolution.
These snapshots reveal that, as forces like gravity have reshaped the universe, the universe has in turn become less clumpy. In other words, the universe grew more complicated than expected. The team behind these findings used the sixth and final data release from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in combination with Year 1 data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) to reach these conclusions.
This powerful combination of data allowed the researchers to layer cosmic time, akin to stacking ancient cosmic photographs over recent images of the universe, creating a multidimensional perspective of the cosmos.
