The first three-dimensional map of the distant Universe, showing clumps of hydrogen gas between 3 billion and 3.7 billion parsecs away, was released on 1 May at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Anaheim, California. The map - the fruits of the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey experiment - was made by measuring 14,000 quasars, the luminous nuclei of early galaxies. Their light is absorbed at particular wavelengths as it passes through the hydrogen. Ripples in this gas (a two-dimensional slice is pictured, with density of gas increasing from blue to red) could shed light on how dark energy drove the expansion of the early Universe. See go.nature.com/fromkffor more.
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