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You are here

Postby Doug Coulter » Thu May 26, 2011 9:01 pm

lores.jpg
Map of the local universe


A larger (too large to put inline here) one is available here.

Or with a little massage in "the gimp", below.
hires.jpg
Gimped a little to fit
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Re: You are here

Postby chrismb » Fri May 27, 2011 3:26 am

What is the significance of the equatorial gap?
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Re: You are here

Postby Doug Coulter » Fri May 27, 2011 8:28 am

It's the plane of our own galaxy -- can't see through the dust. I like the stringy formations, almost like recently popped bubbles. On slashdot, of course they were complaining that this wasn't rendered in some 3-d format hardly anyone can view...but that will come I'm sure.
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Re: You are here

Postby chrismb » Fri May 27, 2011 8:56 am

If the gap is due to galaxtic plane, I find it odd the constructors of the map have chosen a 'galactic' azimuth/RA, rather than a conventional set of co-ordinates.
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Re: You are here

Postby William A Washburn » Fri May 27, 2011 8:57 am

I'm wondering about the highly redshifted points and why they seem to be clumped together in certain directions.
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Re: You are here

Postby Doug Coulter » Fri May 27, 2011 9:51 am

Depending on which cosmological religion you attend, that IS the normal coordinate system. Just not earth-centric.

Yes, the non uniformity is tantalizing despite all that blather about the really uniform cosmic background, eh? I saw an earlier version some years back in split-image 3d and it looked for all the world like the boundaries of popping beer-foam bubbles. Perhaps "the creator" had a sense of humor!

Or as some people added on to Guths inflation theory, what you're seeing is perhaps quantum fluctuations, but way extremely magnified. Fun how cosmology can be done with beer and pizza and the same data gets a lot of explanations. The 'brane guys think this was influenced by another "many worlds" universe's gravity leaking into ours. And fractal lovers have yet another model.

All seem to sorta explain how we could have fairly flat CBE yet have this sort of grouping going on -- average over enough and everything is flat, right?

I'll settle for "it's beautiful" for the moment.
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Re: You are here - another stunner

Postby Doug Coulter » Sun May 29, 2011 12:31 pm

Slashdot was hyping this time-lapse vid over on popsci. For once, the hype was justified I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpeM3fx ... r_embedded

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/05 ... T-In-Chile



Even the music is good. Bring a hanky if stunning movies of the universe affect you.
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