LASTRO wins the GREAT3 image processing competition

A team of scientists from the Laboratory of Astrophysics is among the 3 teams, worldwide, that have won the third "GRavitational LEnsing Accuracy Testing" (GREAT3) image processing challenge. GREAT3 aims at testing and improving the numerical techniques required to analyse the images from the future sky surveys such as the ESA satellite Euclid. The data delivered by Euclid and other projects will measure the small distorsions caused on the images of billions of galaxies by the masses in the large scale structures in the Universe. As the strength of these distorsions depends on the Universe content in dark matter and dark energy, measuring the former provides crucial information on the latter. This requires top-notch image processing techniques that need to be evaluated objectively with realistic simulated data. This was the purpose of the GREAT3 competition, in which the LASTRO astronomers have reached a leading position.