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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Breaking Distant Light
Explanation: In the distant universe, time appears to run slowly. Since time-dilated light appears shifted toward the red end of the spectrum (redshifted), astronomers are able to use cosmological time-slowing to help measure vast distances in the universe. Above , the light from distant galaxies has been broken up into its constituent colors ( spectra ), allowing astronomers to measure the redshift of known spectral lines . The novelty of the above image is that the distance to hundreds of galaxies can now be measured on a single frame using the Visible MultiObject Spectrograph operating at the Very Large Telescope array in Chile . Analyzing the space distribution of distant objects will allow insight into when and how stars, galaxies, and quasars formed, clustered, and evolved in the early universe .
| Date | January 4, 2009 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: VIMOS , VLT , ESO |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |