It will be able to peer to the very edge of the observable universe.

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Within a few decades, says Dr Turner, the entire observable universe will have been digitised.

ECONOMIST: Mining the digital skies

But gravitational strings have no sticky ends and can wander freely off into Dr Arkani-Hamed's extra dimensions, where they have no effect on matter stuck to the membranes of the observable universe.

ECONOMIST: A matter of gravity

Annis says, at the moment, one of the most attractive ideas to explain away dark energy is that on cosmological scales of a tenth of the size of the observable universe or more.

FORBES: Dark Energy Camera Could Reshape Einstein Cosmology

This theory holds that in its early history, the observable Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion, doubling in size many dozens of times, growing our observiball a tiny fraction of the size of an atomic nucleus to that of, say, a beach ball.

BBC: The observable Universe and beyond

The new map is a smart byproduct of the European Space Agency (Esa) telescope's main mission which is to survey the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB - a pervasive but faint glow of long-wavelength radiation that comes to us from the very edge of the observable Universe.

BBC: Planck telescope: A map of all the 'stuff' in the cosmos

Switchback after switchback finally leads to the telescope itself, where Annis, a Fermilab astrophysicist and colleagues, have been fine-tuning the attached digital camera that offers the next best hope in answering questions about the true nature of dark energy responsible for the inexplicable accelerating expansion of the observable universe.

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