Fly Through The Universe In 3 GIFs

Come with us on a journey through time and space. (Mostly space.)

The Galaxy and Mass Assembly catalogue is a detailed map of the universe showing where galaxies are in 3D. And now you can fly through it.

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The project has used ground- and space-based telescopes to map the galaxies and work out that they are aligned along cosmic "tendrils". Now the astronomers are trying to work out how those tendrils fit together.

Each of the galaxies appears as it does from Earth.

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Distances are to scale but the galaxies have been made bigger.

It's probably the closest thing you'll get to flying through the universe at warp speed.

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(But it's not quite what you'd see if you did, because it doesn't take into account the blueshift and redshift – how the wavelength of light changes depending on its speed relative to an observer – you'd see if you were traveling that fast.)

Here's the whole thing.

vimeo.com