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ESO 04/08 - Associated Images

30 January 2008
Under embargo till 30 January 2008, 19:00 CET

New Light on Dark Energy

Probing the cosmic Web of the Universe

Snapshot from a computer simulation of the formation of large-scale structures in the Universe, showing a patch of 100 million light-years and the resulting coherent motions of galaxies flowing towards the highest mass concentration in the centre. The snapshot refers to an epoch about 10 billion years back in time. The colour scale represents the mass density, with the highest density regions painted in red and the lowest in black. The tiny yellow lines describe the intensity and direction of the galaxy's velocities. Like compass needles, they map the infall pattern and measure the rate of growth of the central structure. This depends on the subtle balance between dark matter, dark energy and the expansion of the Universe. Astronomers can measure this effect using large survey of galaxies at different epochs in time, as shown by the new research. Credit: Klaus Dolag and the VVDS team.

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Maps of the distribution of galaxies in the VVDS-Wide survey, showing the presence of large-scale structures. The colours indicate the density of galaxies - going from green to blue, the latter being the densest regions. The data have been cut into three cones, from the closest galaxies (bottom) to the farthest. The sample includes galaxies whose light travelled between 1.3 and 8.5 billion years.

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A journey through a piece of the Universe, 7 billion years back in the past as revealed by the VLT VIMOS Wide Survey. This computer animation shows the position of the more than 10,000 galaxies studied by the astronomers with ESO's VLT.