Largest Structure in The Universe May Be 50% Larger Than We Thought
The largest known structure in the Universe may be even larger than the large we thought it was.
A re-examination of the distribution of powerful space explosions suggests that the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a cluster of galaxies previously estimated to be 10 billion light-years long, could actually be as large as 15 billion light-years in size.
That's not only mind-blowing in scale, but poses a huge challenge to our understanding of the Universe. The findings have been submitted for publication, and can be read on the preprint server arXiv.
The Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall (or Great Wall, for short) was discovered more than a decade ago, when astronomers noticed that gamma-ray bursts were happening in a concentration that was higher than the expected distribution.
Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the Universe, produced during extreme events such as the core-collapse supernova birth of a black hole and the collision of two neutron stars.
Since black holes and neutron stars both form from massive stars, gamma-ray bursts are associated with the populations of massive stars that are usually found in galaxies.
Because they are so bright, gamma-ray bursts can be observed across enormous distances, and their concentrations can be used as a proxy to map galaxy clusters. The study of 283 gamma-ray bursts is what led astronomers István Horváth, Jon Hakkila, and Zsolt Bagoly to report the discovery of the Great Wall in 2014.
Now, the three scientists have joined a larger team to conduct a more detailed study of gamma-ray bursts across the sky to try to get a more accurate sense of the scale of the Great Wall.
They have closely examined 542 gamma-ray bursts with known redshifts – that is, the extent to which their light has been stretched to redder wavelengths by the expansion of the Universe, thus providing a confident measure of distance.
Their results showed that the Great Wall may extend from a redshift of 0.33 to a redshift of 2.43 – a total distance of around 15 billion light-years (the observable Universe is around 93 billion light-years across).
It's a finding that makes the problem posed by the Great Wall even more pronounced.
This is because our standard model of the evolution of the Universe is founded on something called the cosmological principle. This states that, on large enough scales, the Universe is homogeneous, or 'smooth', in all directions.
Each section of the Universe should look more or less like every other section of the Universe, with no major inconsistencies or bumps. This has been confirmed by multiple lines of evidence.
A structure larger than around 1.2 billion light-years would be considered a major inconsistency, and we've found quite a few of those.
A super-structure called Quipu measures about 1.3 billion light-years wide, while the Sloan Great Wall spans around 1.37 billion light-years. The discovery of a similar structure called the South Pole Wall, also around 1.37 billion light-years across, was announced in 2020.
The Clowes-Campusano LQG group of galaxies is 2 billion light-years across, the Giant Arc is around 3.3 billion light-years across, and the Huge Large Quasar Group is 4 billion.
Then there's the Great Wall, which at 10 billion light-years across, was already an extreme outlier. The new results have upped the ante.
Previously, the Great Wall's entire existence was debated. The new results show that evidence of the structure is not a statistical fluctuation or a sampling bias. It appears to be very much real. What the data means beyond that – what the structure tells us about the Universe and its evolution – has not yet been explored.
However, what we do know is that there's a whole lot about the Universe that we don't know, and that we can't really make sense of yet.
Somewhere out there, the answers are waiting. It's discoveries like this that are inching us ever closer to finding them.
The team's findings have been submitted for publication, and are available on arXiv.
First Utterly Alone Black Hole Confirmed Roaming The Cosmos
Rare 'Smiley Face' Moon About to Hit The Sky With Venus And Saturn
Hubble Celebrates 35 Years by Gifting Us 4 Breathtaking Cosmic Images
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Yahoo
University of Michigan researchers develop nation's most powerful laser
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed the nation's most powerful laser. The latest design has nearly doubled the peak power of any other laser in the country. The team recently conducted its first successful experiment measured at 2 petawatts — 2 quadrillion watts — which is more than 100 times the global electricity output. Sign up for the News 8 daily newsletter That giant number is matched with something almost equally as small. The power surge is an extremely brief pulse, lasting just 25 quintillionths of a second. The laser, known as the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser system or , is managed by U-M's and supported by the National Science Foundation. Karl Krushelnick, the director of the CUOS, said this latest milestone 'marks the beginning of experiments that move into unexplored territory for American high field science.' Researchers expect the advancements could be applied to several different fields, including medicine, national security and astrophysics. Since it is supported by the NSF, research teams from all over the world can submit experiment proposals for ZEUS. Franklin Dollar, a professor at the University of California-Irvine, is set to lead an experiment at the new power level. 'One of the great things about ZEUS is it's not just one big laser hammer. You can split the light into multiple beams,' he said in a . 'Having a national resource like this, which awards time to users whose experimental concepts are most promising for advancing scientific priorities, is really bringing high-intensity laser science back to the U.S.' University of Michigan launches new $7 billion fundraising campaign CUOS says 'the road to 2 petawatts' has been a long one. The previous laser system, HERCULES, got up to 300 terawatts. ZEUS helped them jump to 1 petawatt. The ZEUS team has already spent more than a year running experiments at that level. ZEUS requires many special pieces to make it work, including a 7-inch sapphire crystal that is infused with titanium atoms. ZEUS project manager Franko Bayer says they are already working on another one that will help them get even stronger. 'The crystal that we're going to get in the summer will get us to 3 petawatts, and it took four-and-a-half years to manufacture,' Bayer said in the blog post. 'The size of the titanium sapphire crystal we have, there are only a few in the world.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
The US test fired its most power laser ever
A laser named after the most powerful god in ancient Greece is living up to its name. According to the University of Michigan, the first official experiment from the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) yielded 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts) of power. For reference, that's more than 100 times the electricity output across the entire planet—but you'll likely miss it if you blink. The school gym-sized ZEUS is the successor to the university's HERCULES system, which topped out at 300 terawatts. ZEUS relied on a reconfigured target for its debut demonstration, which required firing a laser pulse at a cell containing helium. The subsequent interaction produced plasma as it tore electrons away from the helium atoms, resulting in a mixture of both positive ions and free electrons. The electrons started gaining speed behind the laser pulse in a phenomenon known as wakefield acceleration. Because light moves slower in plasma, the electrons can catch up to the laser beam. Those free electrons also get more time to speed up given the size of the target chamber and thereby hit higher speeds. The recent demonstration is a prelude to the signature ZEUS experiment scheduled for later this year. In that test, the accelerating electrons will also smack into laser pulses coming from the opposite direction. This is where things get (even) more complicated—but to condense it down, the effect makes a 3-petawatt laser appear one million times more powerful, hence the 'zettawatt-equivalent' in ZEUS' name. Accomplishing this and other experimental feats does require some safeguards. ZEUS includes optical devices known as diffraction gratings that stretch out the initial infrared pulse over time. This ensures the initial power doesn't get so intense that it begins tearing apart the air around it. Another goal is to ultimately create beams of electrons with energies similar to those found in particle accelerators hundreds of feet longer than ZEUS at a fraction of both its size and operating costs. At only $16 million to construct, the University of Michigan previously described the machine as a 'bargain.' Years of construction, calibration, and expertise is showcased in an astoundingly short amount of time. ZEUS' 2 petawatt firing lasted just 25 quintillionths of a second. But future experiments will make the most of these moments. 'The fundamental research done at the NSF ZEUS facility has many possible applications, including better imaging methods for soft tissues and advancing the technology used to treat cancer and other diseases,' explained Vyacheslav Lukin, program director in the National Science d Division of Physics, which is responsible for the ZEUS project. Meanwhile, ZEUS experiments could also help researchers explore the dynamics of positron jets that shoot out of black holes, or how gamma ray bursts operate. 'One of the great things about ZEUS is it's not just one big laser hammer, but you can split the light into multiple beams,' said Franklin Dollar, a University of California professor of physics and astronomy who oversaw the 2 petawatt experiment. 'Having a national resource like this, which awards time to users whose experimental concepts are most promising for advancing scientific priorities, is really bringing high-intensity laser science back to the U.S.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
'It's huge, and it's been hidden for this whole time': Gigantic, glow-in-the-dark cloud near Earth surprises astronomers
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have discovered the closest known molecular cloud to Earth, giving them a rare close-up view of the cosmic recycling of matter that fuels the creation of new stars and planets. Named "Eos" after the Greek goddess of dawn, the newfound cloud is an enormous, crescent-shaped blob of hydrogen gas located just 300 light-years from Earth. At roughly 100 light-years wide, it spans the equivalent of about 40 Earth moons lined up side by side, making it one of the largest structures in the sky. "It's huge, and it's been hidden for this whole time," Blakesley Burkhart, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University in New Jersey who led the discovery, told Live Science. Despite its enormous size and relatively close proximity to Earth, Eos had thus far eluded detection due to its low content of carbon monoxide (CO) — a bright, easily detectable chemical signature astronomers typically rely on to identify molecular clouds. Instead, the researchers detected Eos through the fluorescent glow of hydrogen molecules within it — a novel approach that could reveal many similarly hidden clouds throughout the galaxy. "There definitely are more CO-dark clouds waiting to be discovered," Burkhart said. Molecular hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe. By discovering and studying hydrogen-filled clouds like Eos, astronomers could uncover previously undetected hydrogen reservoirs, thereby allowing them to more precisely gauge the amount of material available for star and planet formation across the universe. The researchers reported the discovery in a paper published April 28 in the journal Nature Astronomy. Burkhart discovered Eos while analyzing 20-year-old data from a spectrograph aboard the Korean Science and Technology Satellite-1, which was launched into Earth orbit in 2003 to map the distribution of hot gas in the Milky Way. Related: Astronomers discover 'Quipu', the single largest structure in the known universe Similar to how a prism splits visible light, the spectrograph on board the satellite broke down far-ultraviolet light into a spectrum of wavelengths. This enabled scientists to identify emissions from different molecules. In what seemed to be an empty region of the sky, data cataloging of the hydrogen molecules revealed Eos to be "literally glowing in the dark," Burkhart said in a Rutgers statement. "It was very serendipitous," she told Live Science. "I was looking at this data and saw this structure. I was like, 'Huh, I don't know what that is. That's unique.'" Eos has been sculpted into its crescent shape through interactions with a nearby colossal feature in the sky — the North Polar Spur, a vast region of ionized gas that extends from the plane of the Milky Way all the way toward the northern celestial pole. Eos' shape aligns perfectly with the North Polar Spur at high latitudes, Burkhart said, indicating that the energy and radiation from this massive structure, likely driven by past supernovas or stellar winds, have interacted and influenced the surrounding gas, including Eos. Simulations tracing Eos' evolution — particularly how its molecular hydrogen reservoir is torn apart by incoming photons and high-energy cosmic rays from the North Polar Spur and other sources — suggest it will evaporate in about 6 million years, the new study found. A follow-up study of Eos searched for signs of recent or ongoing star formation with data from the European Space Agency's recently retired Gaia space telescope. The findings, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, suggest the cloud has not undergone any substantial bursts of star formation in the past. However, it remains uncertain whether the cloud will begin to form stars before it dissipates, Burkhart said. RELATED STORIES —'It's answering one of the questions of the century': Scientists may finally know where the oldest gold in the universe came from —Astronomers discover giant 'bridge' in space that could finally solve a violent galactic mystery —James Webb Space Telescope finds a wild black hole growth spurt in galaxies at 'cosmic noon' Burkhart and her colleagues are developing a mission concept for a NASA spacecraft named after the newly discovered molecular cloud. This proposed Eos space telescope would observe in far-ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the molecular hydrogen content in clouds across the Milky Way, including its namesake, to conduct a census of the formation and destruction of molecular hydrogen gas. "There's still tons of open questions," she said. "We're just getting started."
