The Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Redshift Survey was the first attempt to map the large-scale structure of the universe. It began in 1977 with the initial data collection completed in 1982. Data from the second CfA survey (1985–95) made possible the 1989 discovery of the Great Wall, a supercluster of galaxies surrounded by voids that surprised astronomers because its size was larger than what could be produced by gravitational collapse since the beginning of the universe. Since then, superclusters have been described as artifacts of quantum fluctuations in the inflationary epoch of the universe.
Famous quotes containing the word survey:
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)