Une équipe internationale d'astronomes australiens, anglais, américains, sud-africains, français et japonais vient d'achever l'arpentage de galaxies le plus détaillé de l'univers proche, montrant non seulement où se trouvent les galaxies mais aussi d'où elles émergent, avec quelle rapidité et pourquoi. « C'est comme si on prenait une image instantanée de la faune sauvage d'une plaine africaine. Nous pouvons dire de quelle oasis elles proviennent, et à quelle vitesse elles voyagent » précise D Heath Jones, de l'observatoire anglo-australien (AAO) coordinateur du relevé Six-Degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS).
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.
Astronomers have completed the most detailed survey of 110,000 galaxies in the nearby universe, which will not only reveal their locations but also where they're heading, how fast and why.
"It's like taking a snapshot of wildebeest on the African plain. We can tell which waterholes they're heading to, and how fast they're travelling" - Heath Jones of the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO), who heads the Six-Degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS).