Refer to this scenario for the following questions:
A multi-dimensional being reaches down to Earth and pulls you out of the universe. You are then thrown back into the universe at a place and time of the being's choosing, and you are permitted to leave only after you have identified your surroundings. This process is repeated several times. Through a scientifically unexplainable miracle, you are able to survive in every one of the places that you find yourself. In each scenario below, identify your surroundings (and potentially your cosmic era) from among the choices given.
-You find yourself in a very low-density gas that is extremely hot. In fact, the temperature of the gas is so high that it is emitting lots of X-rays. There are no stars anywhere within about 10,000 light-years of you, but at slightly greater distances, your sky is brightened by hundreds (perhaps thousands) of beautiful, star-filled structures, some with majestic spiral shapes. Where are you?
A) You are in the universe when it was about 500 million years old, just before galaxies began to form.
B) You are in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, looking outward into the Local Group.
C) You are in the universe about 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the cosmic microwave background radiation was formed.
D) You are in intergalactic space within a rich cluster of thousands of galaxies.
E) You are in the outskirts of a galaxy whose nucleus is a powerful quasar.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The low-density gas and absence of stars nearby suggest that the individual is not within a galaxy, but rather in intergalactic space. The presence of many star-filled structures at greater distances suggests that the individual is in a cluster of galaxies, and the abundance of X-rays may indicate the presence of hot gas between them. Therefore, the best choice is D, where the individual is in intergalactic space within a rich cluster of thousands of galaxies.

Refer to This Scenario for the Following Questions