SPT team leader John Carlstrom, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago (Illinois, USA), is quoted by the National Science Foundation (NSF): "The telescope, camera and optics are all working as designed. First light with the SPT is a major milestone for the project…. We now look forward to fully characterizing the instrument and beginning cosmological observations."

The South  Pole Telescope (SPT), which was completed in January 2007, is a sub-millimeter telescope with a 10-meter diameter primary mirror. Its designers—scientists at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois (Urbana), the University of California (Berkeley), and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Massachusetts)—made the SPT to find out how influential dark energy is to the expansion of the universe and whether dark energy is a constant or variable force.

Dark energy is described by scientists as a hypothetical antigravity force that fills the universe. It is the supposed force that makes the universe expand at ever increasing rates. According to German-American physicist Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, dark energy operates against gravity at large distances. If dark energy exists, then its presence may explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate and why scientists cannot find all the mass contained in the universe—what is called dark matter.

Currently, dark energy is considered to possibly exist in two forms: as a constant field whose energy density uniformly fills the universe (what is called Einstein’s cosmological constant) or a dynamic field whose energy density varies within space and time (what is called quintessence).

The mission of the SPT is to view fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared (heat) and radio waves. CMB radiation is the afterglow left over from the Big Bang—the supposed explosion about 13.7 billion years ago that created our universe.

The SPT was placed in the frigid environment of the South Pole (the Antarctica) because it uses the cold and dry conditions of that area to produce the best quality images possible of CMB radiation.

Due to these frigid conditions and its high-technology equipment, the SPT is able to observe tiny changes in the temperature and density of CMB radiation. By making such observations, scientists hope to determine if dark energy has been countering the affects of gravity on the formation of groups of galaxies (what is called galaxy clusters). Back when the universe was only 400,000 years old, stars and galaxies are believed to not have yet formed. When they began to form, dark energy and gravity may have acted in opposition to each other to affect how galaxy clusters have formed over billions of years.

Within a few years the SPT may have detected thousands of galaxy clusters formed early in the universe. Such discovery may help scientists learn more about dark energy and the history of our universe. As Dr. Stephan Meyer, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, recently stated through the NSF, “We would like to know what makes the universe evolve.”

Now, with the use of the South Pole Telescope, we are getting closer to understanding that evolution.

The term 'dark energy' was first used by U.S. theoretical cosmologist Michael S. Turner, who is a professor at the University of Chicago and the assistant director for the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS).

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