New cosmic map reveals colossal structures

[n2doc]

The new survey mapped the positions of more than 100,000 galaxies. The black strips are areas the survey did not cover because matter in our own galaxy blocked the view (Illustration: Chris Fluke/Swinburne University of Technology)

00:42 04 April 2009 by David Shiga

Enormous cosmic voids and giant concentrations of matter have been observed in a new galaxy survey, one of the biggest completed so far. One of the voids is so large that it is difficult to explain where it came from.

Called the Six Degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS), the project scanned 41% of the sky, measuring positions and distances for 110,000 galaxies within 2 billion light years of Earth.

No previous survey has covered as much of the sky at such a distance. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which is based in the northern hemisphere, has probed about twice as far but covers only 23% of the sky.

A team led by Heath Jones of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Epping, Australia, announced the completion of the survey on Friday. The project used the 1.2-metre UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia and as a result looked only at parts of the sky visible from the southern hemisphere.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16903-new-cosmic-map-reveals-colossal-structures.html

[patrice]

1. We are this.

Om naham Shivaya!

[soothsayer]

2. We're entering the galactic center (of our galaxy, the milky way)

also called "the dark void" i think. We'll be there in 2012. Should be all kinds of wild particles hitting us. Buckle up!

Here's what I don't get about the Big Bang: if everything started moving apart, why did anything clump up into all this STUFF? Why didn't it just spread out? and why isn't it uniform?

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Not sure where you got that from...

we don't go anywhere near the galactic center, we're orbiting around it (once every 250 million years or so): in 2012, we'll still be traveling through the 'local fluff' - a diffuse gas cloud we entered around 100,000 years ago and won't leave for a good 10,000 years to come.

Interestingly, the Voyager probes are ahead of the sun: they are (very roughly) either side of where the sun will be late 2011, so we should get advanced warning of any weirdness. Nothing yet, though.

The question about the large scale structure is a real head-scratcher, though.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Oh, that's standard 2012 Maya calendar nonsence.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. I think she means crossing the galactic plane

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Ahh, that makes more sense

Sadly, we're 140 trillion km above the plane and moving away from it, but it's a fun idea.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. I haven't looked into it at all, but isn't that what everyone's been claiming will happen in 2012?

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Well, not quite everyone

For instance, having just checked whereabouts the sun is along it's galactic orbit, I would make no such claim.

But I guess it passes the time if you like that sort of thing. :)

Edit: Flicking around teh 'tubes, it seems some of the claims are for an alignment of the sun and the galactic core, which is a rather different kettle of fish: Although it hardly seems likely to be the end of anything, I'll have to look into it...

[FiveGoodMen]

13. Frankly, none of the discussion about this has ever interested me enough

to look into it.

(End-of-the-world happens every third Tuesday, doesn't it?)

But from the little smatterings I'd picked up, I thought there was general agreement about the astronomical positions since that should be an easy thing to debunk if it's false.

(Don't really have a horse in this race...or an interest in the Mayan calendar.)

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Well, it's hardly life-or-death...

...but it's a fun bit of research & mental gymnastics to seperate out the facts from the voodoo. The sun misses the galactic center by a good 6 degrees, btw, which is what it does every year.

And yes, it's terribly easy to debunk. ;)

[bleever]

4. I can see my house.

It's in the dark part.

Seriously though: awesome.

[Orrex]

6. That's not your house--that's the House Nebula

Awesome indeed, though!

[FlyingSquirrel]

5. It reminds me of the magnetic field of the earth.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/magnetic/magearth.html

Perhaps there's a magnetic field to the universe as well.

[pleah]

7. K&R It looks like moth wings.

:)