A view of the ProtoDESI set up during assembly at Berkeley Lab. Picture: Paul Mueller/Berkeley Lab

Google has mapped our roads, homes and oceans but scientists are looking towards the heavens for the next major mapping project.

Researchers recently created a 3D map of 1.2 billion galaxies in order to gain insight into the mysterious force known as dark matter but a new project will seek to use an army of tiny “robots” to further broaden our understanding.

Dubbed the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) it has recently received approval from the US Department of Energy to move from the design phase to the construction phase.

Under the command of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, 5000 finger-sized robots contained in the telescope-like structure will be deployed to aim fibre-optic cables to gather light from a chosen set of galaxies in order to patch together an enormous 3D map of the sky.

The information gathered will tell us about the properties of galaxies, stars and quasars as well as how quickly they are moving away from us.

“We’re very excited — ecstatic — that we’ve gotten to this step,” said DESI director Michael Levi in statement.

David Schlegel of Berkeley Lab added: “This brings DESI closer to its five-year mission to go where no map has gone before in the universe.”

DESI’s robotic components will cycle through separate sets of objects several times each hour during its five-year mission set to commence in January 2019.

“The DESI map of galaxies will reveal patterns that result from the interplay of pressure and gravity in the first 400,000 years after the Big Bang,” said Daniel Eisenstein of Harvard University, a DESI co-spokesman. “We’ll be using these subtle fingerprints to study the expansion history of the universe.”

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), shown in this illustration, will be mounted on the 4-metre Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. Picture: R. Lafever, J. Moustakas/DESI CollaborationSource:Supplied