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Article: A river runs through it? Mapping the flow of the universe. (visible galaxies and hidden, dark materials)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- December 12, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The ancient Egyptians thought of the heavens as a steady river along which the sun sailed by day and the moon by night. Cosmologists today see a much bigger and faster river in the sky.
Forget the gentle flow of sweet Afton. Think instead of the mighty Mississippi. If astronomers are right, the Milky Way and thousands of other galaxies are streaming in concert across the heavens at the furious rate of some 375 kilometers per second.
And just as canoeists look at ripples in a river to discern unseen rocks, astronomers identifying patterns in the cosmic flow have begun to use their river sense to ma the lumps of matter in the universe -- both visible ...