Science/Engineering/Technical forums

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

Or with a little massage in "the gimp", below.

What is the significance of the equatorial gap?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.