January 16, 2013 10:06 am
To Understand the Largest Structure Ever Found, We Need to Rethink the Basic Principles of the Universe
The largest structure known in existence. Photo: Roger G. Clowes
It may look like a bunch of balloons or bacteria, but this cluster of dots represents the largest structure ever discovered in the observable universe. These 73 quasars—massive, extremely remote celestial objects—stretch for about 4 billion light years. To put that in perspective, The Atlantic writes, consider that our own humble Milky Way galaxy is only 100,000 light years across.
Light from each quasar had to travel billions of years to reach our telescopes, so while they may still exist, they could be long snuffed out. All 73 of the giants are situated at the center of their own galaxies.
Einstein’s Cosmological Principle predicts that, given a large enough scale, the universe should pretty much look the same wherever you look. If nothing else, these 73 quasars certainly occur at a large scale, meaning something unusual is going on in their corner of the abyss. Astronomer Roger Clowes, whose team identified the structure, says that the cluster’s hugeness “substantially exceeds” the largest expected size of what’s allowed to exist according to Einstein’s Cosmological Principle. It may need some revision.
More from Smithsonian.com:
More Stars in the Universe
A Guided Tour of the Universe
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It is also possible that the universe is vastly larger then what we know. FTL expansion dictates that here are parts of out universe that will never be observable. If for example our observable universe accounted for only a tiny fraction of the actual size, then Einsteins theory could still hold true.
Comment by Alec — January 16, 2013 @ 12:35 pm
Is it possible that since we are looking back in time by looking farther away that this is just the universe of today compacted into a smaller volume…so this is not so much a large structure as it is just all of the stuff of today’s universe compacted into a smaller volume? This also makes sense because it would also be ‘hotter’…more quasar looking…
Interested to consider that we may have just found the direction of the center of expansion from a singularity.
Likely not the case, but if anyone has any better vetted thoughts on this I would be interested to hear them…
Comment by Anon — January 16, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
Gameday bucket go boom!!
Comment by Frank — January 16, 2013 @ 1:46 pm
The moon is made of swiss cheese too!
Comment by Frank — January 16, 2013 @ 1:50 pm
What if this object is the result of a very powerful black hole, and the quasars are approaching it. If so, then the black hole may be more than a black hole; it could be something swallowing the universe and increasing is size.
Comment by Chris — January 16, 2013 @ 9:12 pm