May 14, 2024 05:23 PM
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrono...-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)
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)
