Projects
List of Projects
SkAI Institute
The SkAI Institute is one of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Simons Foundation, which will accelerate Astro-AI research and help educate a diverse Astro-AI workforce. CAPS is one of the lead partners of the SkAI Institute. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the SkAI Institute project.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory Project
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a state-of-the-art astronomical survey facility on Cerro Pachón in Chile and is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) through a Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) award of more than half a billion dollars. It comprises a powerful 8.4-meter telescope and a 3.2-gigapixel camera—the largest camera ever built. The focus of this project is to discover the structure and evolution of the universe and the celestial objects it contains. The project is conducting a ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), making a movie of the night sky, which will allow astronomers to discover anything relating to sky changes, such as exploding stars, potentially dangerous asteroids, or distant supermassive black holes consuming gas. The survey will catalog billions of new galaxies and stars, better measure the expansion of the universe, map the distribution of dark matter, and make new, unimagined discoveries. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory project.
Dark Energy Survey
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a USA-led international project, funded by the NSF and DOE, which has mapped large portions of the sky at optical wavelengths, surveying everything from galaxies to supernovae. The project is helping researchers explore the accelerating expansion of the universe. The DES is producing the most extensive and accurate dark matter map. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the Dark Energy Survey project.
SCiMMA
Scalable Cyberinfrastructure to support Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (SCiMMA) is working to combine traditional astronomy with a system that has computing power capable of handling large-scale distributed data. Funded by two multimillion-dollar grants from NSF, SCiMMA is developing tools and services to advance multimessenger and time-domain astrophysics by creating a cohesive ecosystem around ground- and space-based facilities and experiments. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the SCiMMA project.
CMB-S4
The Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4 (CMB-S4) is the next-generation cosmic-microwave-background experiment being built to radically transform astrophysical and cosmological research. The main goals of the project are to: detect primordial gravitational waves from cosmic inflation, constrain light-relic particles, map matter in the universe, and detect/characterize millimeter-wave transients. The CMB-S4 effort is supported by the NSF and DOE. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the CMB-S4 project.
South Pole Telescope
The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10-meter-diameter millimeter-wave-class telescope located at the geographic South Pole, currently mapping the cosmic microwave background with a third-generation SPT-3G camera. The SPT-3G survey will provide the most sensitive measurement of the millimeter-wave sky in both temperature and polarization over ~10,000 square degrees and also will produce the most precise measurements of dark matter on degree scales. The SPT project is supported by the NSF, Office of Polar Programs (OPP), and DOE. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the South Pole Telescope project.
Terahertz Intensity Mapper
The Terahertz Intensity Mapper (TIM) is a NASA-funded balloon-borne far-infrared (FIR) imaging spectrometer designed to characterize the cosmic star-formation history and unveil the forces driving galaxy assembly over cosmic time. TIM has been optimized for a new observational technique called “line-intensity mapping” (LIM), which will construct three-dimensional maps of the universe to understand how it has evolved over cosmic time. TIM is planning on an Antarctic science flight in the Austral summer of 2026/27. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the Terahertz Intensity Mapper project.
MUSES
Modular Unified Solver of the Equation of State (MUSES) is an NSF-funded large-collaboration project that is developing new cyberinfrastructure to provide the scientific community novel tools to answer critical interdisciplinary questions in nuclear physics, gravitational-wave astrophysics, and heavy-ion physics. Click here to learn about CAPS’ work on the MUSES project.
IAU CPS
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS) coordinates international efforts to help mitigate the negative impact of satellite constellations on ground-based optical and radio astronomy observations as well as on humanity’s access to a pristine night sky. CAPS is a contributing member of the IAU CPS.
Publications
You can view our publications via the CAPS public library on the Astrophysics Data Systems website.