Is this our universe? Possibly. It is one computerized guess of how gas in the universe was distributed billions of years ago, at redshift 3, when the universe was only a quarter of its present age. Using supercomputers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and assumptions about the composition and beginning of the universe , the GC3 team was able to reconstruct a hypothetical universe . A cube of this universe was cut out and displayed, with each side being about 8 million light years across. Color represents temperature of the hot gas . At the bottom a single slice through this cube is displayed, with helium abundance superposed with a wire mesh. The small structures appearing here give insight into the past and present structure of the intergalactic medium , the matter inhabiting the regions between galaxies and clusters of galaxies .
Media Credits & Attribution
Credit: M. Norman (UIUC) et al., Grand Challenge Cosmology Consortium