After 20 years of mapping the night sky, one project has filled in an 11 billion year gap in our knowledge of the universe’s history.
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Since 2000, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, or SDSS, has been regularly studying the sky via its relatively small two-and-a-half meter telescope in New Mexico with the goal of creating the most detailed map of the observable universe ever.

The data produced by the SDSS has made it one of the most influential tools in cosmology. Over the years the project introduced new instruments like the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, or BOSS, which mapped the distribution of luminous red galaxies and quasars to establish a scale created by ripples in the very early universe.

SDSS is on its fifth study and if it is anything like the others it will reveal parts of the cosmos we’ve never seen before.

Find out more about the lasting legacy on scientific study the SDSS project has had and will have for years to come in this Elements.