File:COSMOS 3D dark matter map.jpg

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Summary

Description	English: This three-dimensional map offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the Universe's mass. The map reveals a loose network of dark matter filaments, gradually collapsing under the relentless pull of gravity, and growing clumpier over time. The three axes of the box correspond to sky position (in right ascension and declination), and distance from the Earth increasing from left to right (as measured by cosmological redshift). Note how the clumping of the dark matter becomes more pronounced, moving right to left across the volume map, from the early Universe to the more recent Universe. The distribution of mass in the Hubble Space Telescope COSMOS survey, determined from measurements of weak gravitational lensing. The field of view covers about nine times the size of the full moon, and the third dimension stretches from redshift z=0 to z=1. The figure shows one isosurface of the gravitational potential.
Date	2007
Source	Originally uploaded at en.wikipedia as File:COSMOS 3D dark matter map.jpg by User:RichardMassey. (Transfered by User:Quibik.) Also available at http://spacetelescope.org/images/heic0701b/ Isosuface data can be found at http://www.roe.ac.uk/~rm/cosmos/
Author	NASA/ESA/Richard Massey (California Institute of Technology)

Licensing

	The copyright holder of this file, NASA/ESA/Richard Massey, allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.
	Attribution: NASA/ESA/Richard Massey Attribution

This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use.
The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ ESA-Hubble}} tag.

File usage

The following pages on Schools Wikipedia link to this image (list may be incomplete):

Dark matter

Metadata

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JPEG file comment

This three-dimensional map offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the Universe's mass. The map reveals a loose network of dark matter filaments, gradually collapsing under the relentless pull of gravity, and growing clumpier over time. The three axes of the box correspond to sky position (in right ascension and declination), and distance from the Earth increasing from left to right (as measured by cosmological redshift). Note how the clumping of the dark matter becomes more pronounced, moving right to left across the volume map, from the early Universe to the more recent Universe.

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