What 600 Billion Billion Kilometres Of Quasar Light Looks Like

What 600 Billion Billion Kilometres Of Quasar Light Looks Like

This might look like a strange microscopic image or even an aerial view of a sprawling city late at night. It’s actually what a 600-billion-billion-kilometre-wide section of the universe looks like.

Modelled by a team of scientists at the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, the image shows the light thrown out of quasars as it propagates through our universe. These astronomical bodies, powered by black holes, emit light which is twisted and warped as it passes through galaxies and gas clouds. The red patches are galaxies, the blue strands gas clouds.

The researchers model what they think might be happening — which is what this images shows — and compare it to experimental results to check that they’re thinking in the right way. The simulation shown here spans a frankly incredible distance of 65 million light years — or 600 billion billion kilometres. Just a snapshot, really, given the entire universe is 10 trillion kilometres across. [New Scientist]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.