“The SPT [South Pole Telescope] was specifically designed to tackle the dark energy mystery. The 10-meter telescope operates at millimeter wavelengths to make high-resolution images of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light left over from the big bang. Scientists use the CMB in their search for distant, massive galaxy clusters, which can be used to pinpoint the mass of the neutrino and the properties of dark energy.
‘The CMB is literally an image of the universe when it was only 400,000 years old, from a time before the first planets, stars and galaxies formed in the universe,’ [Bradford] Benson said. ‘The CMB has travelled across the entire observable universe, for almost 14 billion years, and during its journey is imprinted with information regarding both the content and evolution of the universe.’
–Steve Koppes. “South Pole Telescope Homes in on Dark Energy, Neutrinos.” UChicagoNews. April 2, 2012. The University of Chicago. Web.