Tuesday, May 13, 2014

PHOTOS Unprecedented Images of the Intergalactic Medium

Unprecedented Images of the Intergalactic Medium:

Comparison of Lyman alpha blob observed with Cosmic Web Imager and a simulation of the cosmic web based on theoretical predictions. Credit: Christopher Martin, Robert Hurt - See more at: http://www.caltech.edu/content/intergalactic-medium-unveiled-caltechs-cosmic-web-imager-directly-observes-dim-matter#sthash.3bs0Xl3d.dpuf
PHOTOS Unprecedented Images of the Intergalactic Medium
Comparison of Lyman alpha blob observed with Cosmic Web Imager and a simulation of the cosmic web based on theoretical predictions.
Image Credit: Christopher Martin, Robert Hurt
An international team of astronomers has taken unprecedented images of intergalactic space — the diffuse and often invisible gas that connects and feeds galaxies throughout the Universe.

Until now, the structure of intergalactic space has mostly been a matter for theoretical speculation. Advanced computer simulations predict that primordial gas from the Big Bang is distributed in a vast cosmic web — a network of filaments that span galaxies and flow between them.

This vast network is impossible to see alone. In the past astronomers have looked at distant quasars — supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies which are rapidly accreting material and shining brightly — to indicate the otherwise invisible matter along their lines of sight.

While distant quasars may reveal the otherwise invisible gas, there’s no information about how that gas is distributed across space. New images, however, from the Cosmic Web Imager are revealing the webs’ filaments directly, allowing them to be seen across space.



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