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Astrophysicists release largest 3D map of the universe ever created

Astrophysicists have filled in 11 billion years in our picture of the universe with the release of a comprehensive analysis of the largest three-dimensional cosmic map ever created. 

“This is one of the most substantial advances in cosmology in the last decade,” said University of Waterloo professor Will Percival, a lead researcher on the work. 

A group of astronomers led by Dr Sesh Nadathur at the University of Portsmouth, and including WCA Director Will Percival, have spent the last 3 years studying large structures in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe to provide the most precise tests of dark energy and cosmic expansion yet.

WCA Professor Brian McNamara publishes, "The formation of dusty cold gas filaments from galaxy cluster simulations" in Nature Astronomy.

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1090-7

A team of researchers at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute led by postdoc Andrej Obuljen, have just announced the detection of galaxy assembly bias.

In alternate years, the CASCA Board has the honour to bestow the Executive Award for Outstanding Service “to an individual who has made sustained contributions in service that have strengthened the Canadian astronomical community and enhanced its impact regionally, nationally and/or internationally.” Dr. Michael Balogh, of the University of Waterloo, is the recipient of the 2020 Executive Award.

A distant quasar – a pulsating firestorm burning brighter than a trillion suns, half the universe away from Earth – harbours a supermassive black hole. And we can now see it with unprecedented clarity, thanks to a team of researchers from the global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.

The EHT team conducted the highest-resolution measurements yet of a quasar called 3C 279, using the same interconnected global array of telescopes they utilized to capture the now-iconic image of a black hole, published in April 2019.

WCA researcher, Professor Michael Balogh was recently awarded a Canadian Space Agency grant aimed at supporting analysis of data from Astrosat (which carries a Canadian instrument, UVIT).  This money will be used to support a new grad student, Cameron Morgan, who is joining us in September.

WCA researcher, Brian McNamara was awarded NASA’s Group Achievement Award as a member of the Lynx Astrophysics Large Mission Study Team for “the substantial and effective scientific, technical, and management work in developing the Large Mission Concept Studies for the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey.”  

 "The strength of gravitational wave "echoes" following the merger of two neutron stars on 17 August 2017. We see a significant signal at frequency of 72 Hz, 1 second after the merger."

Originally published by the Perimeter Institute

The Buchalter Cosmology Prize recognizes “ground-breaking theoretical, observational, or experimental work in cosmology that has the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding.”