Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. It is one computerized guess of how gas in the universe was distributed billions of years ago, at redshift 3, when the universe was only a quarter of its present age. Using supercomputers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and assumptions about the composition and beginning of the universe , the GC3 team was able to reconstruct a hypothetical universe . A cube of this universe was cut out and displayed, with each side being about 8 million light years across.
Color represents temperature of the hot gas .
At the bottom a single slice through this cube is displayed, with helium abundance superposed with a wire mesh. The small structures appearing here give insight into the past and present structure of the intergalactic medium , the matter inhabiting the regions between galaxies and clusters of galaxies . Specific rights apply .