Newly discovered cosmic megastructure challenges theories of the universe (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 10 months ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/space@lemmy.world

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Astronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, the proportions of which challenge existing theories of the universe.

The so-called Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3bn light years, making it among the largest structures ever observed. At more than 9bn light years from Earth, it is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons.

The observations, presented on Thursday at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, are significant because the size of the Big Ring appears to defy a fundamental assumption in cosmology called the cosmological principle. This states that above a certain spatial scale, the universe is homogeneous and looks identical in every direction.

“From current cosmological theories we didn’t think structures on this scale were possible,” said Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire, who led the analysis. “We could expect maybe one exceedingly large structure in all our observable universe.”

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[-] derphurr@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Weird reporting like this is "new" GRB ring out of Swift and Sloan SDSS data.

Sloan Great Wall, which is around 1.5 billion light-years in length

South Pole Wall, which stretches 1.4 billion light-years across.

Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, which is about 10 billion light-years wide

2015 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_GRB_Ring

It is approximately 9.1 billion light years from Earth and about 5.6 billion light years across.

2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1421

Evidence suggests that this feature is the projection of a shell on to the plane of the sky. Voids and string-like formations are common outcomes of large-scale structure. However, these structures have maximum sizes of 150 Mpc, which are an order of magnitude smaller than the observed GRB ring diameter. Evidence in support of the shell interpretation requires that temporal information of the transient GRBs be included in the analysis. This ring-shaped feature is large enough to contradict the CP. The physical mechanism responsible for causing it is unknown.

[-] Jeredin@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Modern titles are often awful but this article was not only decent but important for casuals who found it while checking other news. Honestly, these structures and both amazing and challenging. It’s unfortunate that it’s going to take time for some cosmologists to take them seriously. Instead they have their horse blinders focused on “dark” this and “black” that. These are not only in need of more attention from the community but it’s not hiding in the “dark.” Hell, we just find some great solutions for others “mysteries” by studying them…