{"id":11143,"date":"2012-10-25T16:19:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T02:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=11143"},"modified":"2021-02-10T13:33:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T23:33:33","slug":"astronomers-now-able-to-map-universe-in-3-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/10\/25\/astronomers-now-able-to-map-universe-in-3-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers now able to map universe in 3-D"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Galaxy cluster MACSJ0717.5+3745<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Combining observations from Mauna Kea with data taken by telescopes in space, astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy<\/a> and their collaborators have developed a technique that allows them to map collisions of giant galaxy clusters in three dimensions.<\/p>\n

“Being unable to see these large-scale structures from different angles makes it very difficult to figure out their three-dimensional shapes, let alone their relative motions and interactions,” explains Harald Ebeling<\/strong>, IfA<\/abbr> astronomer and an expert on galaxy clusters. “All we see in our images is a 2-D projection of a 3-D structure onto the plane of the sky.”<\/p>\n

Creating 3-D reconstructions of merging galaxy clusters<\/h2>\n

Luckily, when two galaxy clusters collide, astronomers can make use of a clever combination of observations to make the invisible visible. In three recent studies, Ebeling and an international team of collaborators created 3-D models of merging galaxy clusters. Creating these models requires mapping all the components of a cluster—the galaxies that we see in visible light, the hot gas permeating the cluster that emits X-rays, and the invisible dark matter that can be detected only because its gravity distorts the images of objects behind the cluster.<\/p>\n

To collect all these data, Ebeling’s team used three world-class observatories—the Mauna Kea Observatories (specifically, the Keck I telescope of the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi<\/span> Telescope), the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

The results of these 3-D reconstructions of some of the most massive structures in the universe will appear in three articles to be published by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n