Hubble's deep field imagery is breathtaking, but what lies between those thousands of spiral-arm galaxies? More stars, of course. Data collected by
CIBER rockets
(Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment)show that as many as half of the
stars in the universe are orphans -- suns that spun out of their home
galaxies in the wake of celestial events that tore universe in twain.
These stars live in the dark space between galaxies, bathing the
universe in the dim "intra-halo" light that the CIBER rockets picked up.
Although the light from these stars is readable using modern
instruments, they are extraordinarily distant. "The night sky on a
planet around such a star would be profoundly boring and black to human
eyes," explains Caltech experimental astrophysicist Michael Zemcov. "No
other stars, or at least very few, no Milky Way
band, only distant galaxies." It may not be the brightest area of the
universe, but it's good to know that the space between galaxies is more
than an empty void.
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