Posted on 11/03/2009 9:19:57 AM PST by NormsRevenge
A gigantic, previously unknown set of galaxies has been found in the distant universe, shedding light on the underlying skeleton of the cosmos.
"Matter is not distributed uniformly in the universe," said Masayuki Tanaka, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) who helped discover the galactic assemblage. "In our cosmic vicinity, stars form in galaxies and galaxies usually form groups and clusters of galaxies."
But those collections of matter are just small potatoes compared to larger structures long-theorized to exist.
"The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called 'cosmic web,' in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy structure," Tanaka said.
These filaments are millions of light-years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe: Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest.
Scientists have struggled, though, to explain how the filaments come into existence. While massive filamentary structures have often been observed at relatively small distances from us, solid proof of their existence in the more distant universe has been lacking until now.
The team led by Tanaka discovered a large structure around a distant cluster of galaxies in images they had taken earlier. They have now used two major ground-based telescopes to study this structure in greater detail, measuring the distances from Earth to more than 150 galaxies, and, hence, obtaining a three-dimensional view of the structure.
The spectroscopic observations, detailed in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Journal, were performed using the VIMOS instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile and FOCAS on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
"Grant Money" is forever!!
hahahahahahahahaha
ping
My theory is that it wasn’t just one Big Bang - there were several. So by definition, it was a Gang Bang.
Ping.
Don’t the scientists know that if you could visualize the complete structure of this skeletal cosmic web, it’ll form the head of his Holiness Obama!
LOL!!!!!
Who made the ears so big?
They have discovered gravity.
:’)
Okay. Why doesn’t this surprise me? I would expect this with early galaxy formation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.