The first segment of the 3-D map is being designed to include data from 1.4 million galaxies and 160,000 quasars according to the , which is part of the project. The researchers hope to complete that part of the map by 2014, the university said.

The team is using a 2.5-meter telescope, equipped with two powerful special-purpose instruments, at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. They have so far collected astronomical data on a thousand galaxies and quasars.

Scientists have not announced how long it might take to create the whole map.

"Making a three-dimensional map is essential to understanding why the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate," said University of Arizona astronomy professor , director of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. A collaboration of 350 scientists are working on the survey, also known as SDSS-III. The mapping project, known as the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, or BOSS, is part of SDSS-III.

Astronomers long have been trying to figure out . Experts theorize that about 70% of the universe is made up of dark energy.