The VIPERS project is mapping the distribution of galaxies in the distant Universe. It uses the VIMOS spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope (ESO VLT) in Chile. By fall 2014, the programme will have measured nearly 100,000 galaxy spectra, each with a precise redshift measurement. Further reading VIPERS website http://vipers.inaf.it/ The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): an…
Category: Cosmonews
VIPERS: A look halfway back in the life of the Universe
What did the Universe look like 7 billion years ago? VIPERS (the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey) is mapping the distribution of galaxies at redshift 1, an epoch when the Universe was half its present age. VIPERS is an ESO large project with an international team led by DarkLight investigator Luigi Guzzo. VIPERS observes a critical period in cosmic history when dark…
A confirmation of the cooling power of voids
The standard cosmological model predicts that photons will heat up slightly while crossing the strong gravitational potential of a massive cluster of galaxies. Conversely, while crossing a void – a region of space empty of galaxies – photons will cool down. On large scales of hundreds of megaparsecs the effect is due to the accelerating expansion rate of space and…