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Map of the observable universe
- brink 4y agoHow complete is it?
- dmbche 4y agoNeat! Does someone know why there is a band of white/blue galaxies between the redshifted ones and the edge of the universe? I would've assumed it kept getting redder!
- nonfamous 4y agoThose are quasars (which are why they are bluer). Beyond a certain distance galaxies become undetectable, but quasars are much brighter.
- dylan604 4y agoaccording to the map itself, about 90°
- nuccy 4y agoActually we cannot see far (other galaxies, early galaxies, quasars) in some parts of the sky because we are in our own galaxy plane [1], so stars, but mostly gas and dust between them obscure significant portion of our field of view [2]. So it is not flat 90 degrees, but roughly two cones with 90 degrees openings in Milky way's plane perpendicular directions. 1. https://scitechdaily.com/gaia-spacecraft-discovers-parts-of-the-milky-way-are-much-older-than-thought/ https://scitechdaily.com/gaia-spacecraft-discovers-parts-of-... 2. https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/supporting-science/large-scale-structure/ https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/supporting-science/large-sc...
- dylan604 4y agoIn a few more millennia, our arm of the Milky Way will spin around so that we are able to the other side. We should be able to get some decent parallax measurements to distant objects at that time as well.
- markild 4y agoReminds me of https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex
- revskill 4y agoHope there's similar map of universe of all algebraic structures.
- lgas 4y agohttps://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage maybe?
- lagrange77 4y agoWonderful
- TheRealPomax 4y ago"Map of the Observable Universe" (big difference, and the actual title on the page itself)
- pseidemann 4y agoThe biggest difference in existence.
- dang 4y agoOk, we've made the universe observable in the title above. Thanks!
- TheRealPomax 4y agoNext stop: the stars. All of them. That we can see, anyway O_O
- noradina 4y agoCOOOOOOOOL!
- noradina 4y agowow very interesting
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sigmoid10 4y agoNice visualisation, but the explanations contain a bunch of mistakes. The cosmic microwave background is not "the first flash of radiation" after the big bang (which would've been much earlier), it is the "wall" of last scattering before the universe became transparent enough. And its distance is also not limited by light travel distance within the age of the universe (13.7Gly) but by its rate of expansion, resulting in an actual distance closer to 40Gly.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y agoIndeed, the Cosmic Microwave Background is the light that's still left over from a time when the Universe was much hotter and filled with plasma. At a certain point, the Universe cooled down enough to become neutral, which made it mostly transparent, and allowed the photons that had been bouncing around in the plasma to travel indefinitely. > its distance is also not limited by light travel distance At cosmological scales, there is no single, correct definition of "distance." There is coordinate distance, light travel distance, angular diameter distance, luminosity distance, and other measures.[0] All these distances are the same at very small scales, but when you start looking at larger scales, General Relativity starts to matter and the geometry of the Universe is no longer Euclidean. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_measure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_measure
- dimator 4y agowow, your last paragraph filled a little empty gap in my brain, thank you!
- sigmoid10 4y agoOn a global scale, the universe as a whole is actually remarkably close to euclidean [1] (which is a mystery of its own). So it's not curvature that's the problem, but expansion. To account for this, people usually quote the comoving distance [2] (which factors out expansion) when talking about very distant things like the microwave background. I.e. the distance light would have to travel today if you could freeze the evolution of the universe for the duration of the journey. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe [2] see your own source
- CyborgCabbage 4y agoWhy only 90 degrees?
- pixl97 4y agoWell, we can't get a full 360 degrees because of the zone of avoidance caused by the center of the milky way. Also after a particular number of degrees it doesn't matter quite so much, the universe is isotropic enough that looking in any direction pretty much gives the same results.
- glitcher 4y agoI suppose we only have one point of reference to make observations from, but it feels a little strange how the graphics tend to give a false sense of us being at the center of the universe. Would this graph essentially look the same if the observations were made elsewhere, like way over near the redshifted elliptical galaxies? Sometimes it's difficult to wrap my mind around the combination of distance and time represented at these scales.
- svachalek 4y agoNot a physicist but that's how I understand it, anywhere you go in the visible universe should have a perspective that looks more or less just like ours, as if they were at the center. We can only see so far though, so someone a billion light years from here would have a visible universe that overlaps with ours like a Venn diagram, but would be seeing things we can't. Who knows, maybe there's something really interesting they could see that we cannot, like an edge of the actual universe with nothing beyond?
- Kaibeezy 4y agoI think it said right on the map that it's not only essentially the same in all directions, it's pretty much the same from any vantage point, since the distance makes most of the difference in what would be seen.
- rodamaral 4y ago
- aizyuval 4y agoAwesome! Loved it! Simple and so fascinating.
- dcwardell 4y agoI always appreciate content like this which is easy to digest but still inspires awe in the universe around us. Scrolling around the map and looking further and further back in time reminded me of this Kurzgesagt video [0]. It's crazy to think how much of the universe is lost to and unreachable by us. Kurzgesagt has a lot of great content (even if it's a bit cartoonish). I'm sure they get things wrong, but I feel like they make an effort to research the topic first. [0] https://youtu.be/uzkD5SeuwzM https://youtu.be/uzkD5SeuwzM
- bookofjoe 4y agoWhere is the dark matter?
- svachalek 4y agoAs I understand it, dark matter is loosely clumped around the bright matter, held by gravity but otherwise not interacting with it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rodamaral 4y agoAccording to the main view, dark matter floats throughout the galaxy (and outside) but is much more concentrated near the center. A tiny amount is probably crossing your body right now, but there's no way to feel it except for the minuscule gravitational force coming out of nowhere.
- Nevermark 4y agoDark matter appears to be distributed like a web, with concentrated regions responsible for normal matter collapsing into galaxies. You can roughly "see" the dark matter web by looking at the web like distribution of galaxies.
- boringg 4y agoI am a bit disappointed that they didn't mark where the alien civilizations are currently living. Also add-on feature would be nice to find some tribes on the map that have either "scrolls of ancient wisdom" or a good chance of a "an advanced tribe" I'm less interested in the "valuable metal deposits worth 50" but that's far better than "unleashed a horde of barbarians!" but I guess it's a gamble for every tribe you find.
- fallingknife 4y ago> Beyond this distance, galaxies are harder to see. However, we can still see quasars. They are much brighter and bluer. But don't we have pictures of galaxies going back to the earliest universe? I thought that JWST is specifically made to image them.
- Ptchd 4y agoWhen I click the arrow to go down, it does nothing.
- u1tron 4y ago
- Mockapapella 4y agoI know I should be amazed by this, but whenever something like this pops up I get just a little bit sombre. With everything humans have accomplished, it still seems absolutely miniscule when looking at the scale of everything out there. More so, there's a sense of loneliness. Yes we have each other, but beyond that? We're all we've got for now, maybe ever. I just wish I could live long enough to know.
- layer8 4y agoPotentially adding some somberness: Feelings like somberness and loneliness only exist in your mind, as a result of how evolution formed how our brains work. It doesn’t have any real meaning outside of our current restraints. In fact, meaningfulness itself is a concept that only exists within our minds. That set aside, what I find more disappointing is how the speed of light, the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the inescapable increase of entropy place serious constraints on anyone’s future.
- xbryanx 4y agoExplain it to me like I'm five: Why can we only see 90° of the sky? I look at the map at the bottom of the page and wonder why it isn't a circle. I'm obviously missing a key concept.
- tremon 4y agoNot sure if this answers your question, but from the description tab, under "What is this map?" The full map is actually a sphere. This visualization shows a thin slice of the Universe. Its thickness is about 10 degrees. More astronomical data is available but it is not possible to show all of it at once on a 2D map. The image would be completely saturated with dots. It actually visualizes the slice depicted on the main page as a 3D rotation. I would struggle to explain the concept of arc slicing to a five-year-old though.
- legohead 4y ago> Its thickness is about 10 degrees. Does that mean their slice is only 1/36th of the whole picture?
- tremon 4y agoIt's 1/72nd of the celestial sphere I think, since a single rotation gives you the east and west views in full, but due to the 90° field of view, you need to repeat that rotation in the north-south direction to cover the entire sphere.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cvak 4y agoIs there an actual 3d map like this?
- moffkalast 4y agoWould definitely be cool to have a 4D map, in a sense. Like a google sky type interface with a timeline scroll.
- andrewstuart 4y agoI'm an atheist, but in place of spiritualism I have the mysteries of the universe. Is the universe infinite? It appears to be based on existing evidence. And if not infinite, then being geometrically flat makes it unthinkably vast multiplied by unthinkably vast. How did the universe even start? And how can that question make any sense at all without time? How can there be "before the beginning of the universe" when "before" is not a concept that exists? Fabulous questions to ponder.
- jamesgreenleaf 4y agoA genuine atheist, or an agnostic? If the former, why deny yourself another fabulous mystery?
- andrewstuart 4y agoI’m a deep atheist. Nothing could convince me there is a god. I simply don’t believe in any sort of god at all. No heaven, no hell. When you’re dead, you're dead. You are welcome to your own beliefs. I won’t impose mine on you and don’t impose yours on me.
- serverholic 4y agoWhat if we’re in a simulation? Couldn’t you reasonably call the creators gods?
- jamesgreenleaf 4y agoSometimes I'm in wondrous awe at the unfathomable scale of it all, and other times I can understand why the Krikkiters were so upset.
- osigurdson 4y agoAre there any sites that have an actual map (i.e. like google maps but for the universe)?
- avodonosov 4y agophotons get stretched?
- Nevermark 4y agoTheir wave lengths get stretched. A roughly accurate analogy: think of a boomerang thrown in outer space, moving at a constant velocity, but slowing its rotation over time (for some reason - work with me). The result is that over time, each loop of the boomerang will happen over a longer and longer distance. The boomerang isn't stretched, but its spiral looping is.
- jeisc 4y agoUntil we have discovered how to travel instantly through time and space all of our models of the universe are surely off target. Why do we think that the physics of matter are the same everywhere as if our solar system represents the benchmark of everything that exists everywhere? The possibilities of interacting systems of physics could be present in the entirety of space? What we are able to perceive from our vantage point is indeed inestimably small in face of what actually exists out there.
- regularjack 4y ago> Why do we think that the physics of matter are the same everywhere Because we don't have evidence that they aren't.