Related papers: Broad Brush Cosmos
In a large scale view of the universe, galaxies are the basic unit of structure. A typical bright galaxy may contain 100 billion stars and span tens of thousands of light years, but the empty expanses between the galaxies are much larger…
The Cosmoglobe project is a global effort to jointly analyze complementary cosmological and astrophysical datasets, in order to better understand our Universe and its evolution. This paper describes the goals and motivations of the project,…
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
Astrobiology is the field of science devoted to searching for life elsewhere in the Universe. It is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating results from multiple fields of science, and in this respect has strong synergies with 'big…
Cosmic voids, the less dense patches of the Universe, are promising laboratories to extract cosmological information. Thanks to their unique low density character, voids are extremely sensitive to diffuse components such as neutrinos and…
We assume that the Universe has a non trivial topology whose compact spatial sections have a volume significantly smaller than the horizon volume. By a topological lens effect, such a "folded" space configuration generates multiple images…
Selected results obtained in major observational sky surveys (DSS, 2MASS, 2dF, SDSS) and deep field observations (HDF, GOODS, HUDF, etc.) are reviewed. Modern surveys provide information on the characteristics and space distribution of…
In this paper we discuss various possibilities of using X-ray observations to gain information about the large-scale structure of the Universe. After reviewing briefly the current status of these investigations we explore different ways of…
Cosmography represents an important branch of cosmology which aims to describe the universe without the need of postulating \emph{a priori} any particular cosmological model. All quantities of interest are expanded as a Taylor series around…
Rich clusters of galaxies, the largest virialized systems known, provide a powerful tool for the study of cosmology. Some of the fundamental questions that can be addressed with clusters of galaxies include: how did galaxies and large-scale…
We discuss the use of galaxies to trace the large-scale structure of the universe and thereby to make cosmological inferences. We put special emphasis on our lack of knowledge about the relative distribution of galaxies and the dynamically…
This book provides a completely new approach to understanding the universe. The main idea is that the principal objects in the universe form a spectrum unified by the presence of a massive or hypermassive black hole. These objects are…
Sky surveys represent a fundamental data basis for astronomy. We use them to map in a systematic way the universe and its constituents, and to discover new types of objects or phenomena. We review the subject, with an emphasis on the…
Cosmography, the study and making of maps of the universe or cosmos, is a field where visual representation benefits from modern three-dimensional visualization techniques and media. At the extragalactic distance scales, visualization is…
In this review we discuss several aspects of Cosmic Voids. Voids are a major component of the large scale distribution of matter and galaxies in the Universe. They are of instrumental importance for understanding the emergence of the Cosmic…
How is the universe organized on large scales? How did this structure evolve from the unknown initial conditions to the present time? The answers to these questions will shed light on the cosmology we live in, the amount, composition and…
I review the status of science with wide field surveys. For many decades surveys have been the backbone of astronomy, and the main engine of discovery, as we have mapped the sky at every possible wavelength. Surveys are an efficient use of…
We describe a system that builds a high dynamic-range and wide-angle image of the night sky by combining a large set of input images. The method makes use of pixel-rank information in the individual input images to improve a "consensus"…
Cosmography is the tool that makes possible to untie the interpretation of cosmological observations from the definition of any dynamical prior. We review the constraints on the cosmographic parameter obtained using the most thorough data…
Gravitational Lensing is an efficient tool to probe: the mass distribution of collapsed systems: galaxies and clusters; high redshift objects thanks to the gravitational amplification; and the geometry of the Universe. I will review here…