soulxtc
October 4th, 2006, 04:32 PM
The largest three-dimensional map of galaxies in the nearby universe has been released by an international team of astronomers. It may shed light on the nature and distribution of dark matter, which cannot be seen but appears to outweigh ordinary matter by a factor of six to one.
The map probes galaxies out to 600 million light years from Earth. Other surveys have studied more distant objects, but none have explored such a wide region of space.
"It covers the whole sky," says team member John Huchra, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "That's what really makes it different." Watch a slideshow of the new survey, showing cosmic structures at varying distances (QuickTime or Windows Media Player).
The map may give scientists a better clue as to where the Milky Way may be heading.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn10217-largest-3d-map-of-nearby-galaxies-released.html
http://www.newscientistspace.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn10224/dn10224-1_600.jpg
The map probes galaxies out to 600 million light years from Earth. Other surveys have studied more distant objects, but none have explored such a wide region of space.
"It covers the whole sky," says team member John Huchra, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "That's what really makes it different." Watch a slideshow of the new survey, showing cosmic structures at varying distances (QuickTime or Windows Media Player).
The map may give scientists a better clue as to where the Milky Way may be heading.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn10217-largest-3d-map-of-nearby-galaxies-released.html
http://www.newscientistspace.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn10224/dn10224-1_600.jpg