3d map of the universe download12/8/2023 Follow for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter and on Facebook. You can follow Senior Writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter ClaraMoskowitz. We should now be able to account for that motion."įor example, one structure revealed for the first time in the new map is likely to exert a gravitational tug on the Milky Way and could be part of the solution, the researchers said. Only by making an all-sky map can you account for all the galaxies that are there. "What's causing that is gravity, and finding the source of that gravity, where the mass is, has been a longstanding issue. Measuring the Big Bang’s leftover glow, the cosmic microwave background, gives us one set of answers, while measuring stars, galaxies, and supernovae gives us a different, incompatible answer. "The most important science question that having a complete map addresses is the source of the motion of the Milky Way," Masters said. From this map, researchers measure patterns in the distribution of galaxies, which give several key parameters of our Universe to better than one percent accuracy. This motion, about 370 miles per second (600 km per second) has yet to be explained by the gravitational attraction of the known objects near our galaxy. A close look at the map reveals the filaments and voids that define the structure in the Universe, starting from the time when the Universe was only about 300,000 years old. In addition to providing a more complete picture of our place in the universe, the new map could help solve the perplexing mystery of why the Milky Way moves the way it does with respect to the rest of the universe. This happens because of the so-called Doppler effect, which causes the wavelength of light to be stretched when the light's source is moving away from us.īecause the universe is expanding, measuring an object's redshift, and hence its velocity, allows astronomers to deduce its distance, because objects that are farther away are moving more quickly. The 3-D aspect of the map comes from the fact that researchers measured the cosmic objects' redshift, which denotes how much its light has been shifted toward the red end of the color spectrum. Masters presented the new map here today at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "In the infrared, we're less affected by the gunk in the milky way so we're able to see down closer to the plane of the galaxy." "This covers 95 percent of the sky," Masters said. This allowed the 2MRS survey to extend its "eyes" closer to the plane of the Milky Way galaxy than has been possible in previous studies, because that area is heavily obscured by dust. Near-infrared light, which is of a longer wavelength than visible light, can penetrate the opaque clouds of dust common in galaxies.
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