Time from start of tape

Voiceover

0m33s – 0m46s

Flythrough AAT. Finish on title.

Welcome to the Anglo-Australian telescope near Coonabarabran in eastern Australia.

Here Australian and British astronomers have been making a map of the Universe – the biggest one ever.

CUT 0m47s to 1m30s: galaxy identifications

1m30s: Our Galaxy, the Milky Way

We live in the Milky Way Galaxy, a swarm of a hundred billion stars.

1m45s-1m48s

Our Sun is just one of those stars.

CUT 1m49s to 2m57s: local environment of Sun

2m58s

Beyond our Galaxy are hundreds of billions of other galaxies. Using a special instrument on the Anglo-Australian telescope, astronomers have measured the positions of hundreds of thousands of them.

3m12s

The project is called the 2dF (two dee eff) survey.

3m15s

It covers two huge slices of space, each going out four billion light-years.

3m33s

By mapping these enormous volumes, astronomers can see for the first time how galaxies are distributed on a very large scale.

3m42s: start of flythrough

Here we are seeing, for the first time, galaxies at their real positions in space.

The survey has netted so many galaxies that astronomers can make an accurate census of them, working out the number of each different type.

4m12s: spiral comes into view

Our own galaxy is like this one – a central bulge of stars surrounded by a thin disk.

4m37s: elliptical comes into view

This galaxy is just a giant ball of stars.

5m07s: cluster comes into view

Some galaxies are clustered in groups.

5m47s: lead up to void

There are vast empty regions with no galaxies at all.

6m09s: chain of galaxies visible

The 2dF survey is answering some of astronomy’s most fundamental questions. By knowing where the galaxies are today, astronomers are getting a better understanding of how the Universe evolved.

6m22s: credits