[ATTACH=CONFIG]195[/ATTACH]Over the summer, I had the opportunity to meet with Margaret Geller, a scientist within Harvard's Center for Astrophysics (CfA). She showed me some of the new research that she and her husband, Scott Kenyon, were conducting. She is currently in the process of mapping the visible universe in terms of the galaxies that reside within it, and is interested in what appear to be formations of galaxes, millions of light years tall. She showed me visual representations of of these clusters, and they appear to be enormous geometric shapes.

The main question on the minds of Ms. Geller and her husband is: why do galaxies form in these structures. I then wondered what created the dark areas between galaxy clusters, and she informed me that this was the next question that they wish to tackle.

Ms. Geller then showed me how she goes about mapping the night sky. Once per week, she has a time slot at a telescope in New Mexico, where she has grad students completing research for her. They observe the night sky in increments of half degrees, and work their way around the universe, so to speak. The radius of their map extends approximately 200 million light years. The images that she showed me had approximately three-quarters of the 360 degree circle filled in.

My meeting with Ms. Geller was both incredibly informative and extremely confusing, but it was amazing to see a current astrophysicist in action! Her research raised many questions on my part. How does one even start answering such mind-boggling questions? Does dark matter play a role in these empty areas between galaxies? And, most puzzling of all, how did these poor grad students get stuck with the task of plotting the whereabouts of nearly 100,000 galaxies?!

Musing,

OffInMyOwnWorld