Astronomy Picture of the Day

NASA ^ | 3-19-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

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.

2002 March 19

Breaking Distant Light
Credit: VIMOS, VLT, ESO

Explanation: In the distant universe, time appears to run slow. 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 that has begun 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.

[petuniasevan]

No, the image really is loaded fully.
It just looks like that because it's a collection of spectra (think breaking light up with a prism).

[Tennessee_Bob]

Hey - can I uset use cosmological time-slowing to give me more time when taking my College Algebra tests?

[altair]

The astronomy pictures are cool (but I'm biased). Thanks for posting them.

[Vigilantcitizen]

Astronomy is cool bump.

[theDentist]

Looks like stacks of chips in Vegas bump.

[Graewoulf]

Happy Roy G. Biv to you -- .

[2Trievers]

Darling that is what it looks like if you have had ooooonnnnnneeeeeeeee too many Lagavulins!