The Map of the Observable Universe

A map of the galaxies and quasars that humanity can see, found by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from 2000 to 2020 — out to near the edge of the observable universe — has been composed.

Image credit B. Ménard & N. Shtarkman; Data: SDSS, Planck, JHU, Sloan, NASA, ESA

Featured here, one wedge from this survey encompasses about 200,000 galaxies and quasars out beyond a look-back time of 12 billion years and cosmological redshift 5. Almost every dot in the nearby lower part of the illustration represents a galaxy, with redness indicating increasing redshift and distance.

Similarly, almost every dot on the upper part represents a distant quasar, with blue-shaded dots being closer than red. Clearly shown among many discoveries, gravity between galaxies has caused the nearby universe to condense and become increasingly more filamentary than the distant universe.

source APOD