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+--- Thread: Research Giant structure in space challenges understanding of the universe (/thread-15874.html)
Giant structure in space challenges understanding of the universe - C C - May 14, 2024
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astronomy/giant-structure-space-universe/
EXCERPTS: What they’ve found is a 1.3-billion-light-year-across, almost perfect ring of galaxies. No such structure has been seen before. And it doesn’t match any known formation mechanism. It has been dubbed the “Big Ring.”
The discovery was presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society and is detailed in a pre-print paper available on arXiv.
It is the second giant structure found by teams led by Alexia Lopez [...] “Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe,” Lopez says. “And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?”
[...] The structures challenge the so-called “Cosmological Principle.”
“The Cosmological Principle assumes that the part of the universe we can see is viewed as a ‘fair sample’ of what we expect the rest of the universe to be like,” Lopez explains. “We expect matter to be evenly distributed everywhere in space when we view the universe on a large scale, so there should be no noticeable irregularities above a certain size.”
“Cosmologists calculate the current theoretical size limit of structures to be 1.2 billion light-years, yet both of these structures are much larger,” Lopez adds.... (MORE - missing details)
RE: Giant structure in space challenges understanding of the universe - Syne - May 14, 2024
Is there definitive evidence that the Big Ring doesn't just appear that way from our perspective?
RE: Giant structure in space challenges understanding of the universe - C C - May 15, 2024
(May 14, 2024 11:36 PM)Syne Wrote: Is there definitive evidence that the Big Ring doesn't just appear that way from our perspective?
It surely wouldn't appear as such if instead we were confined to a "coin-edge" view, though I suppose they would still infer that a ring or coil is what it resembled from another POV. Granted that they would ever notice or discern it to begin with, sans that shape.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67950749
While the Big Ring appears as an almost perfect ring on the sky, analysis by Ms Lopez suggests it has more of a coil shape - like a corkscrew - with its face aligned with Earth.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.07591
We have found an interesting ring shape in the Mg II absorbers, indicating a LSS of galaxies and galaxy clusters, that spans a diameter of ∼ 400 Mpc scaled to the present epoch.