New cosmic map reveals colossal structures

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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.

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