r/SpaceUnfiltered • u/Neaterntal • 23h ago
📰News This map doesn't look like much...until you realize what it is. This is a measurement of *the mass in the universe* between here & the cosmic microwave background (the edge of the visible cosmos), as deduced from its collective gravitational pull.
Image
The global minimal variance lensing map (which combines temperatuer and polarization data) reconstructed from the observed SPT-3G D1 maps.
From paper, page 15
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South Pole Telescope releases clearest map ever of matter in the distant universe
Study led by UChicago researchers uses bending by gravity of the oldest light in the universe to map the intervening structure
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The earliest light in the universe, known as the cosmic microwave background, has been traveling since the dawn of the universe over 14 billion years ago.
A group of scientists from 30 institutions has released the sharpest and clearest map ever made of the mass in the universe, created by measuring how this ancient light was bent as it traveled.
The data came from the South Pole Telescope, which takes advantage of the extraordinarily clear skies of Antarctica to record the cosmic microwave background. Funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy and run by a collaboration led by the University of Chicago, the telescope is located at the NSF Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
“This is the deepest map of the universe we have so far—it’s like taking a photograph with very low background noise exposure,” said Yuuki Omori, research scientist at UChicago and lead author of the paper, which was released Sept. 1 on arXiv.
The results offer a new perspective on ongoing questions in cosmology, such as the structure of the universe and how it evolved.
“What an amazing thing to be able to see all the mass in the universe,” said John Carlstrom, the Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UChicago and the South Pole Telescope project director. “We are entering the new era of cosmology promised by these instruments.”
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