Universe is more uniform than theory predicts

The Universe is nearly 10 percent more uniform than predicted, according to new results from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) co-led by UCL astronomers. The findings, submitted as part of a series of five papers to Astronomy & Astrophysics , suggest that dark matter - which makes up one quarter of the Universe - is more evenly spread than previously thought. By mapping 31 million galaxies covering about 1000 square degrees, or 5% of the extragalactic sky, the KiDS data reveals a smoother sweep of the invisible material than predicted by the 'standard cosmological model' - the leading theory about the Universe's evolution. The standard cosmological model is based on knowledge of the Universe's make-up right after the Big Bang and predicts that dark matter should be dotted around the Universe in denser clumps than the astronomers have observed. The discovery was made by an international team using the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile to study the light emitted by millions of galaxies - some more than 10 billion light years away. This means the light detected on Earth was emitted from the galaxies when our Universe was only half its present age. Dr Benjamin Joachimi (UCL Physics & Astronomy), study co-author who led on the analysis, said: "We used a process called gravitational lensing to see how the gravitational tug of dark matter changed the direction of light emitted from millions of galaxies.