The mysteries of our Universe could be understood better thanks to a new 3D map created by an international team of astrophysicists.
This new map is one of the most complete and detailed maps of the Universe ever made and could provide valuable insight into the distribution of matter in the Universe, including dark matter, which we're still pretty clueless about.
The map is due to the hard work of Professor Mike Hudson, Jonathan Carrick and Stephen Turnbull from the University of Waterloo, and Guilhem Lavaux of the Institute d'Astrophysique de Paris of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique of France.
When most laymen look at this map, it looks a lot like a mountain range, with random curves representing peaks and valleys: there is no discernible pattern. Scientists estimate that this is because of quantum fluctuations in the Universe's early days.
This is a cross-section image of the map, which spans nearly two billion light years from side to side:
The lighter areas are places in the Universe with heavy concentrations of galaxies, while the darker patches have less galaxies in their regions. The red is a supercluster of galaxies, the largest that we know about. The cross represents our galaxy, the Milky Way. The average blue areas are parts of the galaxy we haven't explored yet.
What makes this map so different from others created by astrophysicists is that it takes into account the location and movement of matter in the Universe, particularly the motion of galaxies. This movement tells us a lot about how the Universe expands, as well as where dark matter might exist, and can even clue us in on how much dark matter resides in any one area.
Dark matter is that unexplained stuff that we know makes up a large part of the Universe, but because it doesn't emit or reflect light, we can't see it. We also have no proof that it exists, except in theory. Of course, that makes it hypothetical, so proving the existence of dark matter, or at least finding second-hand evidence of it, would be a very big deal.
"A better understanding of dark matter is central to understanding the formation of galaxies and the structures they live in, such as galaxy clusters, superclusters and voids," says Hudson.
In the near future, the team hopes to collaborate with researchers in Australia to get a better idea of some of the motions represented in their 3D map.
[Photo Credit: University of Waterloo]
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