"Space Lantern" will reveal the fate of the universe

Close emission lines of NCG 4038-4039 galaxies. Pink areas show light from gas heated by newly formed stars.

The new study reveals a more in-depth understanding of the emission lines of galaxies, capable of understanding the composition and fate of the universe.

The desire to understand the nature of dark energy and dark matter led researchers to search for new indicators in the large-scale universe structure, namely, the emission lines of galaxies. We are talking about the powerful emission lines of gas heated by the newly created stars.

Galaxies can be perceived as cosmic lamps, illuminating small territories of cosmic history and informing about changes in the space-time fabric of the Universe. The active formation of new stars leaves a bright imprint in their spectra, which allows you to accurately calculate the distance.

But samples of galaxies with emission lines are less common, and their characteristics are difficult to understand. The only way to understand the processes associated with the creation and evolution of galaxies is based on computational modeling.

Locations of some galaxies of emission lines observed in the study (green circles)

Scientists from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravity (ICG) studied the characteristics obtained in experiments conducted on the DiRAC supercomputer. The main attention was paid to the time when space passed from the dominance of matter to dark energy. It turned out that most of the galaxies with emission lines exist in the centers of gravitational massive wells, surpassing the massiveness of the Sun by 11 billion times.

The findings were compared with the expectations of the SDSS-IV / eBOSS and DESI studies (both aimed at calculating the effects of dark energy on spatial expansion). This comparison will improve our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Preliminary results should come in the summer of 2018. DESI is activated in 2019. He will measure the spectra of 35 million galaxies, which is 8 times higher than the capabilities of the modern SDSS. In 2021, they will be replaced by Euclid (Euclid), collecting spectra of 50 million sources.

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