Clumpiness of Distant Universe Surprises Astronomers

[n2doc]

By Lisa Grossman June 16, 2011 | 12:41 pm | Categories: Physics, Space


The universe appears to be clumpier than astronomers expected, according to the largest galaxy survey to date. The extra clumps could call for a redesign of the standard model of cosmology, and maybe a new understanding of how gravity works.

“Maybe on very large scales, Einstein’s general relativity is slightly wrong,” said cosmologist Shaun Thomas of University College London, lead author of a new paper in Physical Review Letters. “This potentially could be one of the first signs that something peculiar is going on.”

When viewed close up, the matter in the universe bunches up into stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters. But as you zoom out, cosmologists expect the universe to look more and more smooth, sort of the way details in an earthly landscape blend together when viewed from an airplane.


What clumpiness there is comes from tiny fluctuations in the density of matter in the early universe. As the universe expanded, spots with a little bit of extra matter gathered more and more matter through gravitational attraction. Based on the best model of how gravity works and what the universe is made of, cosmologists can extrapolate out from the Big Bang to get a pretty good idea of how lumpy the universe should be on every scale.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/clumpy-universe/

[pscot]

1. In the beginning there was nothing

which exploded. Yeah, that's what happened.

[Occulus]

2. Well, it certainly does look like we're looking at a sphereish fireball

from the inside in the picture.

That's a really cool image.

[Nihil]

3. If you ignore the scale bar superimposed on the photo ...

... it could be an image from a scanning electron microscope ...

:wow:

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Yeah, so tell us what REALLY happened