Largest Object in the Universe Discovered

prostoalex writes "Quick, think of the largest object you can imagine. Whatever your imagination delivered it probably wasn't an 'enormous amoeba-like structure 200 light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas,' a newly found object, as USA Today reports."

Comments

That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[nincehelser]

But what's a few orders of magnitude among friends?

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Anonymous Coward]

How could CowboyNeal let this slip through? He is in familiar territory.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[kinnell]

...which is about as big as 12 gazillion Volkswagen Beetles

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[SCHPONG]

...or 9.4055997 × 10^21 furlongs!

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[roseblood]

Up to 200Million from 200? That's BLOATWARE if I've ever seen it.

Microsoft OS used to work on a 8Mhz machine and now will require a 4Ghz machine(4000Mhz) to run well(MS Vista.) That's only a 500x increase. The 1,000,000 time increase here makes that look like a drop in the bucket!

The universe making MS look good! Gotta love it.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft OS used to work on a 8Mhz machine and now will require a 4Ghz machine(4000Mhz) to run well(MS Vista.) That's only a 500x increase.

You do not need a 4ghz PC for vista to run well. Get your head out of your ass. You're not funny or cute.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[B'Trey]

Playing sort of fast and loose with the definition of "object," aren't they? I generally think of an object as a single item, not a collective. If this is an "object," then why isn't the universe itself an object? And if the universe is an object, then it's necessarily larger than this one.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[qeveren]

Define 'single item'. Everything is made up of smaller bits in groups, bound by forces, until you get down to the quark-lepton scale.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah - you need an 8GHz machine for Vista to run well!

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[osu-neko]

I generally think of an object as a single item, not a collective.

By this definition, there are no objects larger than the largest subatomic particle. An atom isn't an object, it's a collection. If an atom IS an object, then so is a solar system, a galaxy, and this object, no? In all those cases, it's a collection of other objects held together by some physical force. Or are we playing favorites (electromagnetic force, yes, but gravity, no)?

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Chmcginn]

I think part of the definition of "single item" has to include the difference between a big sheet of glass and a big pile of shards. It's chemically and physically connected - if I grab the edge of the sheet, and lift, the whole thing moves, as a single unit, unless I'm pulling hard enough to break it. But if I grab the top shard in a pile, no matter how gently I pull, it's not moving the bottom shard.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[tomhudson]

Its because he was looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Hoi Polloi]

I think they mean that the individual galaxies and gas clouds of the object are gravitationally bound to one another. They measure the velocities of the objects and can see that they are less than the escape velocity for the mass as a whole, just like the stars in a globular cluster.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[monoqlith]

The large object being considered here may not be chemically connected(although it is, locally), but it certainly is physically connected - the entire thing moves together because it's bound up by gravity. So if you move one piece, (assuming you move it slowly enough) the whole thing will move.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Gno]

In a galaxy far, far, away, there lives a gaint space thing and we can't figure out how big it is so a new hope was created and we just labled this mofo as 200million because 199.7 million didn't sound right. Then after all hope had be shrouded away, and the sicentists were belived. We did something, we looked deep inside of outselves, and then found out: we don't care.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[TheSpoom]

Please, please, if you can't measure in Libraries of Congress, I have no time for you.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[J'raxis]

Exactly what I was thinking. Your average supercluster is a few hundreds of millions of light years in size; is this considered a "single object"? It's mostly empty space, but then again so is a nebula, just on a smaller scale. So is any solid object, just on a nanoscopic scale.

This thing is 500 million light-years long, 300 million light-years wide and 15 million light-years thick.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[1point618]

Because in astronomy, an object (or more commonly a structure) is an area of space that has condensed out of the Hubble flow (expansion) of the universe due to gravity attraction of dark matter.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[drsquare]

How big is a million compared to a light year?

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[MrNaz]

Agreed. On a cosmic level we have no way of knowing if the known universe is just a small part of a larger structure. As such, all of the known universe could be "single object", so lets be serious about the way we define things, especially in physics.

In my opinion, TFA is a load of crud. An "object" is a single item. To use an astrophysics definition, it is a parcel of matter of contiguous structure bound by atomic or molecular forces (but not magnetic or gravitic) incorporating solid or liquid state matter, but not gasses or plasmas.

Following this definition:

• Earth is an object, but its atmosphere is not part of it.
• The outer gasseous atmosphere of Jupiter is not part of the planet itself, which is made up of liquid and presumably solids as well.
• When the Sun casts off gas in solar flares, that gas ceases to be "part" of the Sun.
• A full baloon is an object that does NOT incorporate the gas it contains.
• Many have spoken of "escape velocities" being the tie that causes an object to become "one" with another. BS BS BS. The Earth and its moon are not one object, nor are the Sun and the Earth.
• Dust is a collection of very many tiny objects. Yes, its a little hard to think of a "dust cloud" as many small objects, but thats the way it is, so deal with it.

Stop with the hyperbole already. A collection of galaxies and gasses and the missing brains of Slashdot readers is not a single object. Calling it one is just an excuse to attract attention to a "hey my discovered object is bigger than yours" competition.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[fm6]

It's kind of sad how nobody seems to understand how big the universe is. If they did, we'd have a lot less anthrocentric crap, and maybe a little less bad science fiction.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Chmcginn]

So if we had a large enough rocket to move one of the planets in this object, moving it would apply a direct force to something on the other side of the object?

No, wait, it wouldn't... which means it's going to fail that definition. Not that I'm saying that's the definition of a "single item". Just saying that, intuitively, the definition should include the requirement of physical interconnection - otherwise solar systems count as a single items, instead of a bunch of items in orbit around other items.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[jc42]

Well, maybe. But there are a number of examples where it turns out to be very useful to treat a collection of physically disconnected objects as an object. The most common example in astronomy is probably a galaxy, which in many respects acts like a single, organized "object", despite the fact that it's actually trillions of separate objects loosely bound by gravity. And we usually treat our Solar System as an object (which contains four smaller objects of similar structure).

My favorite example is biological. We have no trouble viewing colonial organisms like a sponge or a coral head or a Portuguese Man-o-War as a single "object", even as a single "individual". But biologists have found that treating a hive of bees or ants (or any eusocial creatures) as a single "individual" helps greatly in understanding them. True, these individuals have a lot of physically disconnected bodies. But they are bound by effective communication systems, mostly chemical, partly visual and auditory, and they really do behave as a single colonial individual.

This mostly just illustrates that our definitions of "individual" and "object" might need a bit of work. And the best definition might vary somewhat depending on your field of study.

We know pretty well that treating the "Gaia" concept as a real individual is mostly just silly. But that's at the high extreme; a single animal such as a human certainly is an "individual" although we arose from what was originally a colonial collection of single-cell organisms 600 million years or so back. Somewhere in this continuum we find borderline cases like ants, bees, termites, and mole rats, which are borderline cases that confound our definitions.

But the universe doesn't have to file things according to our definitions. Rather, it's up to us to find concepts that work, and give them names that work.

It's likely that, for astronomers, it will turn out useful to treat this collection of galaxies and assorted other stuff as a gravitationally bound "object". Or maybe, like the recent discussion of the term "planet", astronomers might decide that this was a bad idea and will revise the terminoloy appropriately.

I think they'd have been better off calling it a "structure". But IANAA.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[monoqlith]

I think it would, as long as, as another poster said, the rocket didn't accelerate that object past the escape velocity of the entire system. And it might not move the entire object, but it would certainly change the shape of the object - objects do not have to be rigidly connected, just physically connected(i would consider a malleable substance, such as silly putty, able to constitute an object.) All objects exert a gravitational force on other objects. Objects are pretty much artificial distinctions anyway - differentiation between objects is an aspect of cognition, not physical reality, because all objects as other people said are infinitely reducible. Distinctions and separations between objects are actually just other objects.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[heinousjay]

Strictly speaking, you have absolutely no proof the universe isn't antrocentric. You have to rely on your perceptions filtered through woefully inadequate instrumentation for whatever conception you have now.

Nobody knows anything, really. Life is faith. It's just different kinds of faith is all. There's no point picking on one or the other.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Cadallin]

So what, exactly is the Orion nebula? Or the milky way? If they aren't "objects" what are they? They're assemblages of matter that interact in a meaningful way, such that on the scale of assemblages of matter of similar size to themselves they act in concert with themselves, but not with others. What do you call it?

Furthermore, your definition has numerous problems, how exactly do you determine the mass of your objects? What is mass of YOUR jupiter? No way to know with any degree of precision at all.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Anonymous Coward]

No, don't hold any interest or amazement at this fantastic discovery. Please focus on semantics and grammer. That's how you get mod points, right? Your mental meanderings equate with farting in the wind.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[fm6]

Strictly speaking, you have absolutely no proof the universe isn't antrocentric

In college, my Critical Thinking prof liked to say that "strictly true" is just another way of saying "false".

I can't prove a lot of things. I can't prove that the universe isn't 5 minutes old and all my memories are manufactured. I can't prove that my landlord isn't an evil genius who's performing nasty experiments on me by tampering with the water supply. I can't prove that Donald Rumsfeld isn't a Al Qaida mole, and the whole war in Iraq isn't part of an elaborate scheme to destroy the U.S. But I don't believe any of these things, but it would be damned silly of me to waste any time thinking about the remote possibility that there's any truth to any of them. Except maybe that last one...

Consider: Our species has only existed a brief period of time (if the history of Earth were a cross-country airplane ride, the whole story of humanity would be the time it takes the stewardess to crack the cabin door at the end of the trip) on a planet orbiting a sun that one of 200 billion in our galaxy. Oh yeah, and the observable universe (not the whole universe, mind you, just the part we can see) contains 100 billion galaxies. And you think God built all this shit just for us? I can't prove you wrong, but forgive me if I think that you think too highly of yourself.

And this has nothing to do with faith. I don't know whether your faith about the imporant of our species is religious or just "I need this to be true". If it's religious, I can agree to disagree, but I feel compelled to point out that not all the faithful agree with you. There's nothing inconsistent between religious faith and acknowledging how insignificant we are. That air flight analogy was first told to me by a Christian pastor. I mean hey, just because there's a God who cares about each of us, doesn't mean he cares more about us than the rest of the universe.

And if you choose to believe that humanity is the center of the universe just because that's something you need to believe, then you're ignoring tons of contrary evidence just because you don't like what they're evidence of. That's not faith. That's just denial.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[heinousjay]

In light of your signature, I feel it important I point out that nowhere in my post did I mention my feelings on the matter.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[fm6]

And nowhere in my original post did I claimed to have "proved" the non-anthrocentric view.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[LS]

The pile of shards is also physically and chemically connected. It's just that the atomic forces are very weak, so they don't overcome the force of gravity when you pull on one piece. If that pile of shards was floating in the depths of space, and you pulled one piece outward at a mega-super-slow speed, 1 centimeter per decade or something, the atomic forces may keep the object together.

Also, if your measure of something being a "single item" is being able to move things with your hand, would the earth count as a single object? I could pick up a rock, and it doesn't pull the earth up with me....

LS

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[tooth]

Well, when you get down to it, you're not an "object" or single item, only a collective of loosely bound cells or even molecules.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[mcvos]

When reading the summary, I thought: only 200 light years and it contains galaxies? Most galaxies would count as a bigger object.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[mcvos]

Playing sort of fast and loose with the definition of "object," aren't they? I generally think of an object as a single item, not a collective. If this is an "object," then why isn't the universe itself an object? And if the universe is an object, then it's necessarily larger than this one.

The universe may be an object, but the universe isn't in the universe. Apparently this newly discovered object must be the biggest supercluster or something.

The biggest object in our solar system, for example, is Jupiter's magnetosphere (or so I've been told), and not the solar system itself. It would make the property of being "the biggest object in ..." pretty useless if it was.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[MBGMorden]

Ok, I've been playing way too much WoW lately. When I first read your statement I thought you were trying to measure in Furlbogs. :?

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[MrNaz]

Yes, I know that it is often convenient to treat collections as objects for the puposes of analysis. However I am talking about the strict definition of the word object. When a normal person, or even a physicist hears "largest obeject discovered" the first thing that comes to mind is J-Los ass. Even an astro-physicist would not infer the "colection as an object" definition unless it was supplied to distinguish between that famous rear and a collection of galaxies.

What I am saying is that TFA is stupid and deserving of ridicule. I don't mind when the media gets sensationalist in the trash tabloids, but scientists? I think we ought to demand a higher degree of professional clarity and restraint when making research announcements. What's next? Cure for cancer found.*

* A bullet to the head has been found to prevent 100% of cancer deaths.

Come on, lets be clear about what we mean. Qualifications buried under article crud is for Cosmo, not science journals.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[Thomas Miconi]

incorporating solid or liquid state matter, but not gasses or plasmas. (...) When the Sun casts off gas in solar flares, that gas ceases to be "part" of the Sun.

Are you aware of the fact that the Sun is one big ball of plasma ? According to your definition, the Sun is not even an object.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[amRadioHed]

Right, or the earth really. Isn't the earth after all primarily bound together by gravity? The Sand of the desert or the ocean's aren't any more bound to the earth than the atmosphere.

Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years

[MrNaz]

Oh quiet you two :P

Gee, Captain...

[Zontar The Mindless]

It looks like we've got the Immunity Syndrome.

Re:Gee, Captain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick, think of the largest object you can imagine.

Rosie O'Donnel?

200 MILLION light-years wide...

[kclittle]

... just a minor nit.

Re:200 MILLION light-years wide...

[Cheapy]

Once you get to that distance, does it really matter if they forget the million? It's going to be extremely far anyways.

Re:200 MILLION light-years wide...

[Cecil]

Well, yes, it does, if you're going to call it the largest object in the universe. There are already many things that are thousands or millions of light years across. 200 light years just isn't terribly impressive.

Re:200 MILLION light-years wide...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think his point is that you don't have to bother measuring anything farther than 1000 miles. It won't stop burgers from being cooked and beer from being brewed.

Re:200 MILLION light-years wide...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they claim that this object is the largest in the universe? Isn't the Virgo Supercluster also 200 million light years across? And isn't the Great Attractor theoretically much larger?

200 != 200,000,000

[Mr. Slippery]

Something 200 light years across is not big (on galactic scales). TFA says the structure here is 200 million LY.

Re:200 != 200,000,000

[PhxBlue]

What, you want submitters and editors to start actually reading TFAs now?

Re:200 != 200,000,000

[alienmole]

Stop being so picky! If you'd thought about it for just a minute, you'd have realized that six orders of magnitute is well within the standard Slashdot margin of error.

Re:200 != 200,000,000

[lcohiomatty86]

200 light years is not big in a distance manner.. however when your talking about the SIZE of something.. 200 light years is pretty damn big. that is what.. a quadrillion miles?

Re:200 != 200,000,000

[Mr. Slippery]

however when your talking about the SIZE of something.. 200 light years is pretty damn big

No, when dealing with structures on the order of galaxies and galactic clusters, 200 light years is negligable. The Milky Way is about 100,000 LY in diameter; the "Local Group" of galaxies is 10 million LY across.

So this new thingie is about 20 times the diameter of the Local Group, that's pretty big.

Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 200 *million* light years.

No way

[Eightyford]

It's even bigger than Bono's ego!

Re:No way

[Strych9]

I thought it was Steve Balmer's ego

Re:No way

[TheCycoONE]

Steve Balmer's ego doesn't even compare with the size of his internal void. Need I remind you: Developers! developers! developers!

Re:No way

[GundamFan]

Nothing is bigger than Bono's ego.

Re:No way

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you are thinking of Ron Jeremy's Member

Re:No way

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Balmer's ego doesn't even compare with the size of his internal void.

ballmer.c: error: invalid application of `sizeof' to a void type

Wow, it really doesn't compare! (I'm so sorry...)

This reminds me

[Klaidas]

An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say.

This reminds me of an interesting thought I once heard in some movie, it was something like this:

It is possble that our universe is just a tiny piece of some huge creature's nail. If so, a small piece of our nails might be a universe too...

Re:This reminds me

[Teresita]

Klaidas wrote:

It is possble that our universe is just a tiny piece of some huge creature's nail.

And it's closing in on the Great Cosmic Blackboard.

Re:This reminds me

[vistic]

I wish I could mod you down right now for thinking about something that most people probably thought about either a) back in 5th grade, or b) while high.

Hardly a revolutionary or impressive thought, anyway.

Not to mention the fact that there is plenty of science to suggest why this is wrong... such as what we know about the physics of small scales and energies (think quantum mechanics, and how at some point you can't get into finer detail). And the fact that a being that large would not be able to do anything because of the speed at which information could travel over such large distances is limited by the speed of light and other things... Imagine your brain trying to send a signal to your foot, telling it to take a step... but by the time the signal reaches your foot, your brain has already succumbed to the ravages of entropy and no longer exists.

Re:This reminds me

[thebes]

But by the very nature of the supposition that we are part of something larger, that means that the larger thing may not be bound by our own rules.

Re:This reminds me

[Anonymous Coward]

But by the very nature of the supposition that this thing exist, it *is* bound by our rules... namely the speed of light limit, which appears to be fundamental to physics.

That said, it could simply work on a different timescale. It seems, though, that if the lifespan of your "particles" - galaxies - is of the same order as the time it takes light to cross your fingernail, you're pretty much screwed.

Re:This reminds me

[bsander]

Fear the coming of the Great White Handkerchief!

Re:This reminds me

[Odin The Ravager]

That quote actually came from the movie Animal House (more specifically when the students were smoking pot with their professor)

That means that our whole solar system could be, like
one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being.
This is too much!
That means one tiny atom in my fingernail
Could be one little tiny universe...

Re:This reminds me

[LouisZepher]

It is interesting that TFA has an "image" of the object coloured with Arkleseizure-Phlegm-green...

Re:This reminds me

[wondafucka]

I wish I could mod you down for being a rude jackass. Or at least for trying to link 5th graders and stoners.

I've got some stoner logic for you "Woah man, what if there was, like, this kind of person who was really smart, and like totally understood math and science concepts, but like, is totally stupid when it comes to dealing with people. Like they're just plain condescending and rude."

On the other hand, your logic for the existance of macro or micro organisms holds weight.

Re:This reminds me

[deficite]

This is sort of how Raelians view the universe as well. They view it as infinitely large, infinitely small and that our universe is but an atom in an even larger universe and of course the reverse as well. Seems plausible to me, although it's best to keep your mind open and accept several explanations for things like this. A closed mind is far more damaging than a closed fist.

Re:This reminds me

[Anonymous Coward]

The existance of such ridiculously large macro organism is quite possible, we just need to scale up the time frame relatively to it size. Virus operates in second, insect in day, human in month, coporate in quarter, civilization in millennium, so on and so on.... Every organism is a collective of another simpler organism. Maybe the thing referred to as god is the ultimate organism.

By M.

Re:This reminds me

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Yeah, so if you're praying, don't expect an answer too quickly.

RTFA

[Mr_Icon]

That's 200 MILLION light-years wide, you dumbasses. :) I'd like to see a galaxy that fits in 200 LY, not to mention a cluster of them.

Submission is wrong

[nefele]

First of all, the structure is 200 million light years across. The distance from the Sun to the center of our Galaxy is about 26,000 light years, so 200 light years would not be very impressive in comparison.

Also, the article is somewhat misleading itself, as the blob isn't really a homogenous structure. It's just a group of galaxies packed together more closely than other clusters. So it isn't really that much different from other parts of the Universe.

Re:Submission is wrong

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's just a group of galaxies packed together more closely than other clusters.

And a galaxy is just a group of stars packed together, etc.

Re:Submission is wrong

[__aaclcg7560]

So it isn't really that much different from other parts of the Universe.

You do realize that the Galatic Real Estate Agency will be sending out a team of Space Ninjas after you for trying ruin the market? Remember, in real estate, it's location, location, location!

Re:Submission is wrong

[cswiger2005]

If you hunt down the actual article, they've also been able to see huge formations of gas from which the galaxies formed (presumably), so the structure includes more than just close-packed galaxies:

"A team of astronomers using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea has discovered giant, three-dimensional filaments of galaxies extending across 200 million light-years of space. These filaments, which formed a mere 2 billion years after the birth of the universe, are the largest-known structures ever discovered. They are studded with more than 30 large concentrations of gas, each up to ten times as massive as our own galaxy. These giant gas clouds are probably the progenitors of the most massive galaxies that exist in the universe today.
[ ... ]
The Subaru observations were successful in finding much fainter objects than previously discovered in this region. (Figure 4) For example, they found 33 new large concentrations of gas along the filamentary structure extending across 100,000 light-years. This is the first time that so many large concentrations of gas, known to astronomers as Lyman alpha blobs, have been discovered in the distant universe.

Astronomers think that such Lyman alpha blobs, named so since they are seen in the Lyman alpha emission line of hydrogen, are probably related to the births of the largest galaxies. In the "gravitational heating" model, the blobs are regions where gas is collapsing under its own gravity to form a galaxy. The "photoionization" model attributes emission from the gas to ionization by ultraviolet light from newborn stars or a massive black hole. The "shock heating" or "galactic superwind" model hypothesizes that the glow of the gas is caused by the death of many massive stars born early in the history of the universe, living out short lives, and then dying in supernova explosions that blow out surrounding gas. Team members Yoshiaki Taniguchi and Yasuhiro Shioya (Ehime University) have been advocating for the galactic superwind model.

Observations with the DEIMOS spectrograph at the Keck II telescope revealed that the gas inside the blobs move with speeds greater that 500 kilometers per second (300 miles per second). The extent of the gas concentrations and the speed of the material within them suggest that these regions must be up to ten times as massive as the Milky Way Galaxy."

PS: The "galactic superwind" theory gets my vote for the coolest theory name!

Re:Submission is wrong

[Sonnekki]

I definitely agree that the article is very misleading. In such a case you could say the biggest object is all of the galaxies put together! Now that's just silly.

This is just a case of "yay big numbers!", of which the only one I would be interested in is the 3D volume of the universe.

Remember

[Eightyford]

Remember that was the largest known object in the universe millions and millions of years ago. Who knows what it would look like today.

Re:Remember

[MisaDaBinksX4evah]

Remember that was the largest known object in the universe millions and millions of years ago. Who knows what it would look like today.

In all likelihood, not all that different. Now, if it were billions of years ago, that would be another story...

Wow,

[Megaweapon]

it's almost as big as my wife!

Re:Wow,

[CCIEwannabe]

Its almost as big as your imagination..

Re:Wow,

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up Scott Lockwood.

Re:Wow,

[kid_wonder]

Sal, c'mon enough already

Re:Wow,

[Anonymous Coward]

Honey, I read Slashdot too, you know. And you're not getting any for 200 million years now.

Re:Wow,

[Aidski]

you mean your EX-wife, soon enough.

Large Packets of Gas?

[vistic]

Shouldn't the large regions of gas (they say some bigger than the Andromeda Galaxy in dimensions) collapse under gravity and make stars, galaxies, other things? Unless I guess the gas is super hot and full of energy already.

Then again for how far away this is, maybe it already has and we won't be able to see it for a long time. The article doesn't say how far away this is in relation to us... but it does say it's 200 million light years across.

Re:Large Packets of Gas?

[MindStalker]

Well as stated by others the milky way is 90,000 or .09 million light years across.

SO if its 2000 times as big as our galaxy and we are just NOW being able to see it. Its probably REALLY REALLY far away.. I would guess! :)

Another note our cluster of galaxies called the Virgo cluster which containes most of the visible galaxies such as Andromeda is 100 million light years across.

Re:Large Packets of Gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says specifically it is 2 billion years younger than the universe, in astronomy age is distance, so I would say it is 11 billion light years away. There is enough vagueness in the article that it could be closer, but there is no other info to go on.

Re:Large Packets of Gas?

[cswiger2005]

Shouldn't the large regions of gas (they say some bigger than the Andromeda Galaxy in dimensions) collapse under gravity and make stars, galaxies, other things? Unless I guess the gas is super hot and full of energy already.

Sure-- that's just what most astronomers expect happened. Remember that when we look really far away, we're also looking really far back in time, back far enough that we're starting to be able to see somethings about the universe before many of the galaxies which exist today existed.

The big questions are about things like how uniform was the distribution of the initial gas, when star formation first started happening what kind of stars appeared, and whether the first stars did interesting things like blow up in nova/supernova-type events, or become giant black holes like many galaxies seem to have, and what that would mean for the clouds of gas and the galaxies being formed from it, etc.

Re:Large Packets of Gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah. That light is obviously light from our own galaxy that has been bent back around toward us by huge gravitational fields through the universe. At 2 billion years old, that gives us about 2 billion years to get some really good telescopes so we can watch the dinosaurs LIVE.

We're doomed

[lysergic.acid]

They're here already...

The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea.

Atleast they seem more interested in using our high-powered telescopes than enslaving mankind.

Re:We're doomed

[iminplaya]

They were trespassing. Book 'em, Danno.

Re:We're doomed

[LinuxTard]

More than you know. This could be Azathoth. Can someone get me some audio so I can filter for the drums and flutes?

Vista???

[Anonymous Coward]

"The structure we discovered and others like are probably the precursors of the largest structures we see today which contain multiple clusters of galaxies"
So they found Windows Vista code repository...
Largest object in the universe and full of hot gas :D

Re:Vista???

[slimjim8094]

Only on Slashdot could that joke be modded informative...

Re:Vista???

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio signals emitted from the far reaches of the object are coming through as: "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"

Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[plasmacutter]

And yea on the 7th day G-d rested, after taking his gas-x ; )

*ps.. i am SOOO going to hell!

Re:Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[starm_]

Are you reffering to this?

Re:Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have nothing against religion - and of believing in something greater and beyond our human comprehension.

But does anyone else think that the concept of a vengeful superhuman entity is a little.. strange. Especially in the way that it filters down to common language, such as your joke. Sure.. your "joke" was stupid and pointless, but the suggestion that merely making a fart joke about god means that god is going to condem you to eternal suffering seems somewhat... vindictive.

It's like killing puppies because they're not housetrained - and is completely illogical.

God's message (or, at least the one that I took away from religious class and life in general) is closer to "forgive and love", not "crime and punishment".

Re:Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with you fags muting the o out in God anyway? It's as if you're trying to make some kind of a statement, but it just comes out being idiotic.

Re:Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the age-old theological question...

Can God produce a fart so intense that not even His sphincter could contain it?

Wait.. does God even HAVE a sphincter?

I'm going to meditate on this.

On second thought, maybe not.

Never mind, carry on.

Re:Large pockets of gas?..Amend the bible?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

I was wondering where the intergalactic Chili Cook-Off was going to be held this year.

Geee...

[elmCitySlim]

I thought it would be the bandwith created by posting a story on /. I guess I was wrong...

Couldn't resist

[Toreo asesino]

"That's no moon......" /starwars

The largest?

[slimjim8094]

I have a particaular objection to the title. "The Largest Object" makes it sound like we know we will never find anything bigger. With the size (infinite?) of the universe, I find that impossible to believe. A better alternative title: "Largest object known to date is 100M LY across"

Sorry to bitch and moan, but it pisses me off when people are so damn loose with the english language.

Also: How is this important? So it's big. What now?

Re:The largest?

[Anonymous Coward]

My sentiments exactly...

Calling this an object is a stretch. It's actually a collection of objects close enough together that they might be considered related by proximity. Under this definition, my laptop and I are one object because we are closer together than I am to the tree in the front yard (or the tree, the laptop, and I are the same object because we are closer together than I am to Buckingham Palace).

I guess this is the biggest collection of objects? No wait, that would be the universe... I guess this is the biggest subset of the known universe. Not as thrilling a headline, but hey...

Re:The largest?

[Klaidas]

You do have a point there.
If we think of it, most of words we use today to describe something will be damn funny after, like, 20 years. One example: I was watching old "Married, with children" episodes. On that episode, they bought a computer. One phrase:

It has a High resolution VGA monitor

How hight is VGA today? :) It's very possible that after some time we will find this article and we will be ROLF

Re:The largest?

[MindStalker]

Well its all about prespective. From our distance it appears as one object. I'm sure if you asked a molecule if he was part of an object with the next molecule he would disagree. :)

Re:The largest?

[fyoder]

Well its all about prespective. From our distance it appears as one object. I'm sure if you asked a molecule if he was part of an object with the next molecule he would disagree. :)

But hopefully they would recognize each other's right to exist. It wouldn't be good for the object if they started firing missiles at each other.

Re:The largest?

[Dunbal]

It wouldn't be good for the object if they started firing missiles at each other.

      Bonds are broken; bonds are created. Free radicals come into existence, start mucking everything up and are eventually soaked up. And life goes on, one way or another.

Re:The largest?

[FrenchSilk]

Of course it is an object. It is an instance of the class FilamentaryStructure. Its only constructor is both private and static, which suggests that it is a singleton.

Size 42

[Doc Ruby]

The largest object that I can imagine quickly is the Universe . It's taking longer to imagine the Multiverse as a single object, but it's even more fun.

Re:Size 42

[MindStalker]

Thank you, sadly I've never visited the uncyclopedia before.. Wow what a vast storage of unknowledge I was missing!!!

Re:Size 42

[nicolas.b]

Don't miss the best article. http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/GNOME

Re:Size 42

[kfg]

Oh, hey, thanks for the link. It reminded me that if I don't go out and get some more WD-40 pretty soon my house is in distinct danger of imploding into a singularity.

KFG

Re:Size 42

[Doc Ruby]

Or you're using too much duct tape.

Re:Size 42

[kfg]

Or you're using too much duct tape.

A heretic!

KFG

Re:Size 42

[master_p]

Bah, the Spaghetti Flying Monster (TM) eats your Multiverse for breakfast...

Re:Geee... Bad headline anyway.

[Were-Rabbit]

And I thought it was Ted Kennedy.

The article's premise is completely wrong anyway. It's a bunch of galaxies. It's not a single object. It's like having a headline saying "The largest tomato plant ever!!!" when it's actually thousands of individual tomato plants whose vines have become intertwined.

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Barry Bonds' head moves down to second place now.

An enormous amoeba-like structure...

[ptelligence]

Stuck to the lens of the telescope.

Re:An enormous amoeba-like structure...

[edunbar93]

Um, yeah, because the world's biggest telescopes use refracting lenses these days.

This just serves to make you look even dumber. Or maybe that's the joke.

Re:An enormous amoeba-like structure...

[ptelligence]

Lighten up man. It was a joke, but the funny thing about it is that the worlds most powerful telescopes DO have lenses. Check your facts before you insult my intelligence.

Re:An enormous amoeba-like structure...

[g2devi]

Actually, the picture provided in the article is a bit out of focus and lacks some details:
http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2006/07/27 /subaru-large.jpg

Here's a higher resolution picture that includes the missing pieces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flying_Spaghett i_Monster.jpg

The Wall?

[Zarhan]

How does this compare to The Great Wall, discovered as a structure in 1989?

Re:The Wall?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?numb er=604, the Great Wall is 600 M light-years across.

Re:The Wall?

[Heavy Machinery]

And my favourite visualisation of this can be found in the http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/ Logarithmic Maps of the Universe page. I get a kick out of it every time I look at this map - it still blows my mind! It is amazing how insignificant our planet is, when you consider the number of galaxys (let alone stars) there are in the universe...

Something Bigger

[tawhaki]

I imagined an enormous amoeba-like structure 201 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas.

I know its name!!!

[Abreu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yog-Sothoth

We are doomed!

Here come the "your moms" jokes

[varmint jerky]

n/t

Space is big

[Yvan256]

"Space is big - really big - you just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."--Douglas Adams

Re:Space is big

[CaptnMArk]

This typo requires a trip to the Total Perspective Vortex.

Largest object? Code smell!

[kentheman]

That's got to be one hell of an AntiPattern, I guess.

And its name....

[Anonymous Coward]

...is Harry Knowles.

God? Is that you?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's me, Anonymous Coward...

Largest Object?

[Shadyman]

What, isn't that supposed to be "Your momma"?

New joke for the playground

[ChowyChow]

Your mom

Quick!

[nonetheless]

Somebody get Milla Jovovich!

The star of death?

[freaker_TuC]

It's probably that Deathstar they have been warning us on television about.

Guess it's time to bow to our Sith overlords before it's too late...

I sense you have lost faith in the dark side if you mod this down.

Yo mama so big...

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw "Lyman alpha blobs" stuck up her nostril like a booger.

i'm....on tv....

[ystar]

It's just a cellphone pic of somebody's junk.

Press release

[Jugalator]

... and here's the actual press release for the discovery in case you want some more meat than given by the simplified USA Today article.

Re:Press release

[Chatsubo]

"A team of astronomers using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea has discovered giant, three-dimensional filaments of galaxies ..."

If they're merely three-dimensional, that means they don't obey the laws of quantum mechanics? or time?

That's a REMARKABLE discovery!

Mark parent redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t .... Okay, so I get this message: "This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original..."
Sounds like /. needs to fix its algorithm.

Tags: parentredundant, slashdotbug

Re:Mark parent redundant

[kclittle]

Look at the time-stamp of the "redundant" messages -- there's a clue there... :)

Ogres have a different deity

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloodnut, the Flatulent.

I don't really understand

[kokojie]

How is it an object if it contains other objects?

Re:I don't really understand

[Dunbal]

How is it an object if it contains other objects?

      Just the same as you are an object, and contain other objects. You had lunch today right?

could someone convert that to standard units of

[Anonymous Coward]

volkswagons?

All Hail the FSB

[drgroove]

All Hail - the Discovery of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has finally occurred! Pirates and Pastafarians, rejoyce!

Re:All Hail the FSB

[loserMcloser]

What's a Pastafarian? Is it an Italian immigrant living in Jamaica?

just a cell?

[Bizzeh]

so, we could technicaly just be part of a cell within something so huge, we will never know. like what single celled organismes are to us.

So we found..

[Wescotte]

God and by the looks of it he has really let himself go.

Big stuff

[eebra82]

Man, to find a thing of that kind is like finding a needle in an enormous amoeba-like structure.

Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, it's big. But does it run Linux?

Re:Obligatory...

[Dunbal]

Okay, it's big. But does it run Linux?

      No but it's almost big enough to store Vista.

Just an amoeba?

[malvidin]

What's next? A giant space crystal coming to attack Orion?

Re:Just an amoeba?

[cory_p82]

Anyone else having flashbacks to Starfox?

Re:Just an amoeba?

[deke_2503]

Actually it was a reference to Microprose's early 90's computer game, Master of Orion.

Would that not be the universe itself?

[Forget4it]

The largest object in the Universe: Would that not be the universe itself?

When it comes to discoveries like these...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still think Einstein is right with this theory that the micro cosmos equals the macro cosmos.

It's a publicity stunt.... ;-)

[Aeomer]

Naaaa - It's just a publicity stunt for the MIB III movie. It most likely was cheaper for Sony to make than Will Smith's salary. ;-) Possibly even cheaper than a version 1 PS3.

Largest Object in the Universe Discovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Get out of my pants!

Got a hanky?

[abarrow]

"Ahh, ahh, ahh CHOOO!"

"Look! A huge structure! Wait, it's moving down the screen..."

excuse me?

[tubeguy]

This is an agglomeration of objects, not an "object" unto itself. I just don't get it. What's the big deal? If I'm missing something, please let me know.

Re:excuse me?

[Aeomer]

All object are made up of other objects, we've not yet got to the bottom of final indivisible component of the universe. It depends where you set the boundry. In this case the boundry is there is no 'empty' space between the objects making up this object and hence it is one large object.

Re:excuse me?

[tubeguy]

It seems to this commentator to be related to a programming concept of objects. While I understand that, I just have a problem with describing such a large field as an object. There are too many things we just aren't sure about, such as dark matter, string theory and MOND. If we are to say that such an accretion of matter is to be defined as an abject, then who's to say that our "local system" is not an object unto itself?

Largest Object...

[foxxer]

I bet it was written in java.

The Immunity Syndrome

[rtobyr]

I've seen this before. The only way to protect ourselves is to detonate an antimatter bomb inside its nucleus.

What makes a 'single' structure

[lawpoop]

What is the criteria by which we call something a 'single' structure? If it's stuff bound by gravity, doesn't gravitational force equally attract everything in the universe? Do we consider stuff bound to itself by one of the other primary forces a single entity?

Re:What makes a 'single' structure

[tubeguy]

There is more to this than just gravity. Gravity as a force is actually the weakest force we can experience. Consider the electromagnetic force that keeps atoms intact. Gravity is but a weak player in this worls\d. We can fall down and not fall through the ground because of the electromagnetic force. Gravity is so weak it takes the entire earth to make us stick to its surface.

Re:What makes a 'single' structure

[timeOday]

I agree, I don't see how this counts as an "object." I'll go with your definition in terms of other forces, though as with any definition (outside mathematics), there are sure to be corner cases and exceptions.

Re:What makes a 'single' structure

[cswiger2005]

That's a good question, but yeah, basicly, to an astronomer, a "single" structure is a group of objects that are gravitationally bound such that they "stay together" when observed over long periods of time.

One of the major activities of astronomy is to try to observe things long enough to understand their normal fluctuations-- based on the earth's rotation and revolution around the Sun, observations made 6 months apart give one a 2AU baseline to look for parallax, which can provide relatively exact position measurements for the nearby stars. Once you know that and can model what you're looking at, you can then look for variations via tools like doppler spectography which indicate the presence of planets or things like white or brown dwarfs too small to be seen directly. As well as rarer objects like Cygnus X1, MGG 11 & M82 X-1, etc...

Obvious?!?!?!?!

[fabu10u$]

Did nobody else think of CowboyNeal, or are all those jokes getting modded down?

Fixed...

[Hosiah]

"Largest Object in the Universe discovered."

Whoops, sorry. Forgot to zip up...

Re:Fixed...

[Dunbal]

Whoops, sorry. Forgot to zip up...

      We're talking about your mouth here right? :P

Re:Fixed...

[Anonymous Coward]

You sellin' hotdogs or something?

Re:Fixed...

[mgabrys_sf]

I don't think you want to use the word "FIXED" in that sentance. Just a tip (or snip).

Re:Fixed...

[SanityInAnarchy]

"Amoeba-like"? I don't know about you, but I'm glad mine isn't...

Re:Fixed...

[buzzn]

"Largest Object in the Universe discovered."

Whoops, sorry. Forgot to zip up...

I suppose this also explains the "large concentrations of gas"...

Re:Fixed...

[master_p]

Didn't your mom tell you not to wear your pants backwards? :-)

Re:Fixed...

[mdm42]

So that you bought that shit in the "E^1arge" spam and it really worked?

Re:Fixed...

[Cappy Red]

I believe the proper response in these situations is:

"That's not what she said!"

wooo!
[/bender]

Re:God? Is that you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, my son, it is I, your God. I want for you to stop being such a stupid fag.

"My Gog, it's Full of Farts!"

[surfcow]

Blame Taco Bell.

Enlarge this picture...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was anyone else afraid to press the enlarge button on the graphic?

Oblig. question:

[Eudial]

Which brings us to the obligatory question: Is it a bird?! Is it a plane?!

Amoeba-like?

[dud83]

Wasn't it rather amoeba-shaped?
I'd like to see the nucleus of this object if it was 200 million light years... The nucleus would be... 50 light years? Making it by far the largest nucleus ever discovered! Also can the object reproduce asexually like an amoeba? If so it could soon take over the entire known galaxy... Like a badly made 60s exploitanment movie from hell! :o

*puts on his tinfoil hat to guard against massive amoebas from outer space*

Come on /.

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Hundreds of people have people have pointed out the error. This time it's not some slight error but the biggest error in the history of journalism. It needs to be updated. Don't any of the editors look at the comments? Are teh standards at /. really this low? This is even worse than CNN reporting that the space shuttle was traveling at 3 times the speed of light. Come on! WAKE UP!

Re:Come on /.

[1u3hr]

Don't any of the editors look at the comments?

Well, Timothy does when he recycles them for his Slashbacks. But otherwise, no. If you feel like it, you can email their "hotline" at daddypants@slashdot.org, which is supposedly to the editor on duty. I used to do that, occasionally they would fix errors, but mostly they ignored them, or Malda would respond with some snarky comment. If you do, you might suggest they link to the actual press release, with several illustrations, rather than the dumbed down and truncated USA Today version.

Actually...

[dr_strang]

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

Not bad for 200 ly wide

[grikdog]

You could fit two of those pups between here and Betelguese (425 ly). Missing a few naughts, are we?

Way!

[NickFortune]

I believe the object to be none other than Tony Blair's Sense Of His Own Importance.

Problem with pseudo-scientists

[MisterSquid]

The problem with pseudoscientists such as yourself is that your thinking is limited by what you know.

So what if the fastest information can travel is the speed of light? If this 200-million-light year-wide amoeba is, say, a small part of the being, problems of entropy and decay may not be relevant. How long will the larger structures of such a being persist? What are the structures of such a being?

Imagine a species of "being" existing on the scale of what we call the quantum. Applying what is knowable about the world of the quantum to the world of the molecular would mean that our macro world could not exist. Such beings would say, "the ravages of quantum mechanics and particle decay and instability would not allow such beings to exist." They would be both right and wrong. The world we normally observe cannot be extrapolated from the world of the subatomic. Lucky for us, our world is an empirical fact.

Concerning the grandparent's ideas which you so cavalierly dismiss according to what you know about your sub-universe scale, those ideas are unproven and perhaps unlikely. What is not unlikely is the empirical fact that our universe is part of something whose dimensions and larger nature is UNKNOWABLE TO US

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[PeelBoy]

Whose thinking ISN'T limited by what they know?

Not to disagree with your point.

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[MisterSquid]

Whose thinking ISN'T limited by what they know?

Everyone has limitations, but one of the beauties of the human mind is metacognition. The phenomenon of having expert knowledge prevent one from reinterpreting contrary data is referred to as "confirmation bias" which I recently read about in a blog post by Bob Sutton. Sutton is a fairly renowned consultant.

In the above post, he refers to a phrase that should be familiar to many geeks, which is "strong opinions, weakly held." This is a very good approach to the study of science. Know what you know with near certainty, but the second you come across contrary evidence be ready to let everything go.

Really, it's just the idea that no one, really, knows anything. All knowledge is contingent and what little we think we know is probably wrong somewhere.

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[Tomfrh]

"it's just the idea that no one, really, knows anything."

So you know that do you?

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[kcidybom]

Good argument but let me add a few comments:

1. On a pedestrian level everyone's thinking is limited by what they know, whatever "know" means, yet on a more fundamental level it certainly is not. Witness intuition, flashes of "Where'd that come from?" creativity, and mental states that can only be described as super-sets of what we "know."

2. More than one scientist, of the non-pseudo variety, would hold that the "world we normally observe cannot [help but] be extrapolated from the world of the subatomic [given the appropriate level of description]." I'm referring to thinkers as diverse as Brian Green, Roger Penrose, Richard Feynman, David Bohm and David Chalmers. Well sure, Chalmers is a philosopher, but cut me a break on that one, okay?

3. The world is an empirical fact? So then, you are from the Samuel Johnson "I refute it thus." school, I assume. Dr. Johnson made a point, getting a sore toe in the process, and proclaimed his theory to be superior to that of poor Bishop Berkeley, but given what we theorize today, he would be the first to admit that a return to the drawing board would be in order.

4. I'll go with you completely that the universe is part of an unknowable and encompassing whole. A favorite quote: "The universe is not only stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can know." But the basis of that quote, and any like reasoning, isn't empiricism, but rather proofs such as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.

While we're discussing "big" things, consider the "bigness" of that thing that's considering these words - your brain. Think of the number of subatomic particles in a grain of sand, of the billions of electrons, neutrons, protons, and all their myriad variants and constituents that make up such a small thing. Now think of something larger, like the entire beach where you found the grain of sand. Think of how many more subatomic particles there are in something so large - a truly vast number. Keep going though, through all the beaches that there are, the oceans, all the land, the entire planet, out through all the planets, the Sun, and then roam even more. Think of all the particles that constitute all of the 400 billion stars in this average galaxy, and of all the particles in the billions of of galaxies that exist throughout the entire universe. Keep that thought.

Your brain, that three pound lump of meat between your ears, consists of about 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. Very large numbers indeed but small compared to the number of subatomic particles that make it up, and vanishingly tiny when compared to the scales above. Yet it is not the sheer number of neurons and synapses that should take your breath away, that should boggle your mind, because the magic strong enough to do that is in the number of possible interconnections; the combinations and permutations that underpin everything that makes you, well, YOU. The number of neuronal/synaptic combinations and permutations in your brain, the thing thinking of these words, exceeds the total number of subatomic particles in the entire universe by three orders of magnitude! Now that's a large structure, and makes 200 million light-year wide amoebae puny by comparison.

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." --Albert Einstein

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with pseudoscientists such as yourself is that your thinking is limited by what you know.

You seem hopelessly lost after this sentence. If you were possessed of reasoning skills and some knowledge about FACTS, you would realize why the rest of your argument is moot. For example, a "being" 200 million light years across is not possible. It's not because of a lack of imagination, or a lack of open-mindedness ... it's because that means that it would take 400 million years for one side of the body to know what was happening on the other side and then send a signal back, and that's if you assume the speed of light. If you use the speed with which impulses travel along the fastest nerves in the human body, it would take about 4,033,558,535,164,204,041 years for that signal. In that time the atomic particles making up this being's body would no longer exist. In other words, by the time a signal got to this being's "brain" telling it that its foot needed more energy, and the brain responded, none of the atoms that sent the signal would exist anymore. It's ridiculous.

Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

The world we normally observe cannot be extrapolated from the world of the subatomic.
Don't be ridiculous, of course it can. Ehrenfest's theorem basically says the quantummechanical description, averaged over time, yields the classical description.

... ? hmm ok!

[Anonymous Coward]

After I saw the title, I thought that Slashdot finally became Prono...

In Slashdot units...

[Bogtha]

200 light years is only 197 thousand trillion London bus lengths wide, whereas 200 million light years is 197 billion trillion London bus lengths wide. That's a lot of busses!

Re:In Slashdot units...

[k_187]

yes but how many rodsto the hogshead is it?

Re:In Slashdot units...

[jdbartlett]

The uh, old person's remarks will be stricken from the record.

Move over metric system, a new rule arrives: London buses. Standard rule: 1 London bus = #4 from Angel, Islington.

obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the SIZE of that thing!

Oblig. Futurama response

[Dachannien]

a small piece of our nails might be a universe too...

Farnsworth 420: Dig it! All of you fitting in this box is, like, seriously freaked up!
Farnsworth 1: Nonsense! Why, there's a whole universe in there.
Farnsworth 420: Dude, there's a universe in all of us.
Amy 420: (puts her arms around Farnsworth 420) Right on, Professor Freaksworth!
Farnsworth 420 offers Farnsworth A a flower.
Farnsworth A: Get a job!

It's an Ori Warship!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they didn't inadvertently send a signal to it via subspace interference channels!

Re:Would that not be the universe itself?

[LouisZepher]

The way they called a grouping of seperate objects a single object, then yes, the universe would itself be a "single" object. In that sense, the measurement of such reminds me of the following:

"You see, the computer that runs it is an advanced one. In fact, it is more powerful than the sum total of all the computers on this planet including -and this is the tricky part- including itself." - Professor "Reg" Chronitis, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency; Douglas Adams.

(I know, this is /. so just about everyone knows this book, but I thought I'd cite my references anyway...)

Structure?

[TwoTailedFox]

I thought the largest structure in the Universe was Hillary Clinton's Thighs?

Why 'theoretical big bang' though?

[cruachan]

Interesting that it uses the line 'theoretical big bang' though. Am I being paranoid here or is USA Today covering itself against Creationists? Just seems rather odd to underline theoretical like that.

Re:Why 'theoretical big bang' though?

[Improv]

There are non-big-bang cosmological theories that are not tied to (christian or otherwise) pseudoscience. This was probably meant to recognise that there are non-fringe, non-religiously-inspired other theories out there that some sane folks consider viable.

Re:Why 'theoretical big bang' though?

[4D6963]

As the other poster who replied to the parent said, the Big Bang is not the only scientific theory, or rather, the Big Bang theory as it is known today suffers severe flaws, that we have attempted to "patch" using dark matter and energy and silly theories involving creating new dimensions.

Unfortunatly we seem to be scared to look for an alternative theory that wouldn't suffer these flows, and an unsufficient amount of efforts are being put into it.

Basically we're just trying to keep the Big Bang theory together by all means necessary, and that's sad.

Re:Why 'theoretical big bang' though?

[whitman's ghost]

I think your right, unfortantely all of these creationist and radical religous groups, (the christans, where at war with the islamic ones), are undermining science and basic rational thought. Hey I'm religous, I believe in God, you don't see me forcing my beliefs down everyones throats!!!

Largest Object in the Universe Destroyed

[FloodSpectre]

Wow, I misread that one! " Largest Object in the Universe Destroyed"...
Good thing we're a lot more like the "smallest object in the universe"...

Standard Issue Joke, Ahoy

[stonecypher]

And I for one welcome our new Immunity Syndrome overlords.

Re:Standard Issue Joke, Ahoy

[Anonymous Coward]

You suck.

Re:Geee... Bad headline anyway.

[eyewhin]

Actually, by your terms the bigges object in the galaxy might be a proton. We are made of billions of atoms, yet, you would consider yourself to be an object, no? Well, there are galaxy clusters that are considered to be objects, and there are superclusters of galaxies which are considered to be larger objects. Claiming that this is an object is perfectly relevant. It happens to be composed of galaxies and plasma and other "stuff" that are bound to one another and travelling through the universe together.

The Genius of Gene Roddenberry

[reporter]

The article by "USA Today" states, " An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say ".

40 years ago, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek", already predicted the eventual discovery of space amoeba. Check out the episode (from "Star Trek: The Original Series") titled "The Immunity Syndrome." According to the synopsis by Wikipedia, "The huge expenditure of ship's energy attracts what appears to be an 11,000-mile (~17 700 km) wide amoeba, which appears on the main screen. Kirk launches another sensor probe which reveals the creature is protoplasmic in nature. McCoy believes it is a massive single-celled entity that feeds off raw energy but he needs more data to confirm this."

Re:The Genius of Gene Roddenberry

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you meant to link to the Wikipedia article, you missed the mark pretty badly by linking back to TFA.

Easier way to get something bigger

[SheeEttin]

I can think of something bigger rather easily. This object is 200 million light-years across, yes? That's big, right?

Well, what's containing it? Whatever it's in must be bigger than it (non-Euclidean geometry aside), say, the universe? It's the biggest thing you can think of, right? Well, what's the universe in?

Re:One of the main purposes of Vista...

[Hoi Polloi]

A very detailed and thorough comment. Too bad you posted it to the wrong article.

Finally

[janestarz]

Finally, a garage large enough to park my spaceship in. And it's design. Way to go!

Not largest

[mypalmike]

The largest object in the universe has to be an instance of some MFC class.

It's here, now what?

[Tablizer]

That Beowulf cluster we all kept imagining together has finally arrived.

thanks for finding my penis

[nihaopaul]

seriously, you think they just didn't clean the telescope? how'd you measure somthing like that? hope it isn't growing as it'd suggest its coming towards us at an astonising rate.

The Day's Rolling

[Garrett Fox]

How large does your Katamari have to be to roll it up?

Sure, it sounds big

[Iamthefallen]

But to properly visualize it, how many football fields or libraries of congress is it?

The largest object

[Mr. Firewall]

"Quick, think of the largest object you can imagine ... galaxies and large bubbles of gas...."

Michael Moore.

Hilarious datatype joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it bigger than a BLOB?

The scientists found my ex-wife!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they find all the McDonald's wrappers out there, too?

Re:One of the main purposes of Vista...

[70Bang]

1. Juice you say?

How many bags of flour do you need to find the wet spot?

2. Vista will be like Viagra[1] (aside from a simple spelling difference:

-- stay up for a few hours
in fact, you're supposed to call for assistance if it stays up more than four hours.
-- screw up everything it touches
, -- care to add more?

And finally, anyone remember this little ditty from Boy Scout Camp?

Leader - Flee!
Response - Flee!
Leader - Flee, fly!
Response - Flee, fly!
Leader - Flee, fly, flo!
Response - Flee, fly, flo!
Leader - Vista!
Response - Vista!
Leader - Coom a la, coom a la, coom a la vista.
Response - Coom a la, coom a la, coom a la vista.
Leader - No, no, no, no not the vista.
Response - No, no, no, no not the vista.
Leader - Eenie meenie, dessameenie, ooh wah a wah a meenie.
Response - Eenie meenie, dessameenie, ooh wah a wah a meenie.
Leader - Ex a meenie, zoh la meenie, ooh wah a wah.
Response - Ex a meenie, zoh la meenie, ooh wah a wah.
Leader - Bee bidilie oh doe, boe doe, bah deeten dahten, shh.
Response - Bee bidilie oh doe, boe doe, bah deeten dahten, shh.

Someone has to say it

[atomicthumbs]

I for one, welcome our new 200-light-year-wide enourmous amoeba like structture composed of galaxies and large bubbles of gas overlords!

quick

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick, think of the largest object you can imagine.

My dick.

Wow.

[LKM]

Wow. I see MIB counts as a philosophy lesson nowadays.

You know youve been programming too long when ....

[Berkov_s1]

Omg totally misread the title and started thinking about LOC, getters, setters and the number of variables.

If this thing combines...

[stigmato]

If this thing combines with the smug cloud from George Clooney's Academy Award acceptance speech, we're all doomed!

200 Light years actually impressed me at first

[RulerOf]

Largest Object in the Universe discovered... 200 light years in diameter.

On first glace, I read about an object that was "200 light years wide," and was actually thoroughly impressed. I suppose (at least I think this way) that when you've got an astronomical mindset, you would tend to think of an "object" to be something that is held together gravitationally (such as stars, planets, and black holes), but something that isn't merely just a collection of smaller gravitationally bound objects (such as binary star systems, galaxies, and superclusters).

By this reasoning, I was hoping for something, anything, a black hole even, that was 200 light years in diameter. That would be extremely impressive, and of course, large.

Aside from that, I personally believe that anything that can give us more insight into how exactly galaxies and clusters form from their primordial constituents is good news enough. It's a shame but also a fact that we can only divine this information through mathematics and not observation. And seriously, with that in mind, who cares what the object's size is? As the OP says:

...what's a few orders of magnitude among friends?

Just a thought

[madcow_bg]

I don't want to ruin the impression, but what is the EXACT shape of the amoeba?
I thought it was kind of nonfixed, right?

Actually...

[cloudwilliam]

"it probably wasn't an enormous amoeba-like structure 200 light-years wide" That was the first thing that came to mind. After all, it sucked up the USS Intrepid and its all-Vulcan crew.

"Largest Object in the Universe Discovered"

[zephc]

Yeah, in my pants! Giggity!

Get ready...

[WhatDoIKnow]

I, for one, welcome our new multi-hundred-thousand light year diameter, bubbly gaseous amoeba-like alpha blob overlords.

:wq

Largest Object

[Propaganda13]

Largest Object in the Universe then is the Universe.

Re:Largest Object

[FrenchSilk]

No, the universe is not in the universe. The universe is the universe. There is a difference.

Re:Largest Object

[B'Trey]

The universe isn't in the universe? Then what part of it is outside of it?

No.

[rrohbeck]

They're here already...

The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea.


Don't fear, those are just noodly appendages.

Re:No.

[lysergic.acid]

so "the galaxies and large bubbles of gas" were just... twines of pasta and meatballs?--That is absolutely...

possible.

_____________________________________________

May you be touched by his noodly appendage

6 orders of magnitude mistake

[Branko]

...200 light-years...

Nope, this is 200 million light-years.

Only 200 light-years would be quite unimpressive... even our own galaxy is (much) larger than that (around 100,000 light years in diameter).

Quick, think of the largest object you can imagine

[CrazyJim1]

The universe. Ha, this object is smaller than the universe. I win.

Re:Hmm.. I thought it would have been

[Anonymous Coward]

"Largest Object in the Universe Discovered"

This is old news. I discovered my penis when I was about 3 years old!

Ouch, my mind...

[CptPicard]

Why did they ask me to imagine the biggest thing I can?? The lady next door may be no galactic structure but she's damn near the order of magnitude, and I don't have bubbles of gas mentioned either...

Kennedy's rear

[Porchroof]

They must have overlooked Ted Kennedy's ass.

Re:Gene Roddenberry

[Gnostic Ronin]

umm, they didn't say it's alive.

I'm waiting for the whale probe.

Anyone having problems with reletivity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there is a limit to how slow things can move?

Thats all fine and dandy but

[Anonymous Coward]

Population size produces intellegence.Too bad the planet is so small, or we hummans are so big.If everyone could just shrink about 3 feet we might have a chance.I bet the humman race will someday understand that this planet is all we have,and life in a blissfull ignorant state without oppertunity is a waste of energy.

Time increase?

[jmp]

That's a distance increase.

Use a big mouse to scare it to move!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found it works much better when you drive around on the far side of the object and Push... because if you pull on an object that large you run into the dreaded "taffy effect". Of course by the time you get to the other side the whole thing has moved and isn't there anymore, so you pat yourself on the back assuming it was your motion around it that caused it to retro away from you. www.newpath4.com/freemailinglist2006nomembershipfe es.htm

Gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's God, farting.

How is this an object?

[tuxlove]

To call something an object, doesn't it have to consist of contiguously connected/adjacent atoms? Last I checked, galaxies, even "tightly packed" ones have immense space between the actual objects inside, aka stars and other celestial bodies. To call this thing the largest known object is simply sensationalism. It may be a novel thing, however, whatever it is, and shouldn't that be interesting enough in itself?

Zaphod Beeblebrox's Ego

[WilliamSChips]

Much bigger.

Re:One of the main purposes of Vista...

[doctorfaustus]

no

Thought this was an Enormous Mutant Star Goat

[billstewart]

That's what they told me it was - that's why I got on this ship along with all the other telephone sanitizers...

scales and combinations

[Cappy Red]

"The number of neuronal/synaptic combinations and permutations in your brain, the thing thinking of these words, exceeds the total number of subatomic particles in the entire universe by three orders of magnitude! Now that's a large structure, and makes 200 million light-year wide amoebae puny by comparison."

As with all things, a Star Trek reference can apply here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_IDIC

Re:scales and combinations

[kcidybom]

Damn! No wonder I love polysyllabic words, am logically emotional, and see differentiating similarities everywhere: I'm a fucking Vulcan! My circumcision as an infant apparently extended to my ears, that's all.

Re:scales and combinations

[Cappy Red]

Fascinating.

Maybe I, too, have had some ear circumcision in addition to the standard one. Perhaps prostheses are in order?

It IS a problem of imagination

[Cappy Red]

"It's not because of a lack of imagination, or a lack of open-mindedness ... it's because that means that it would take 400 million years for one side of the body to know what was happening on the other side and then send a signal back, and that's if you assume the speed of light."

No, to a certain extent, it is because of a lack of imagination. We're talking about planets and stars, galaxies and gas clouds being part of a living structure. None of those objects are components of any kind of living structures we know of. If you're willing to take the leap that celestial bodies may be part of a life form, why, then should you be unwilling to take similar leaps to explain how such a life form would work?

For example: the signals could be sent via an alternate Universe, one in which the limits imposed by special relativity do not apply. Black holes at the nuclei of galaxies could act as nodes, through which currently unobserved information is sent.

A bit kooky, perhaps. Out there, yes. But not really any more out there than the idea of a multigalactic life form.

When is an object not an object?

[DaveInAZ]

I agree. I'm a little surprised that you used biology, rather than code (or, god help us, StarGate), as your example, but it works pretty well. The point being that an "object" is not a thing, per se, but a concept; it is an intellectual construct, rather than a physical one and, therefore, can be of varying physical composition to suit the need. People do tend to get too hung up on their own perceptions of what constitutes a particular type of construct, in this case an "object", without actually being able to define it, in most cases.

MrNaz's definition, which I applaud him for providing, might be paraphrased as "In astrophysics an object is a parcel of matter of contiguous structure bound by atomic or molecular, but not magnetic or gravitic, forces and incorporating solid or liquid state matter, but not gaseous or plasmic matter. By that definition, the astrophysicists who referred to this construct as an object are clearly incorrect, since the construct relies on gas and dust as constituents; a clear violation of the definition. Of course, as someone else pointed out, this definition also eliminates stars from the class of constructs defined as objects, because they consist of plasma bound by gravity. One would think that would trouble astrophysicists.

I agree that "structure" would be a much closer approximation than "object", but even that has its problems, since it implies purpose. Personally, I think that the only label that can really be said to apply is "the region designated as (whatever they want to call it), which is defined by the boundaries blah, blah, blah..." Thinking of it as an object, or even a structure, has dangerous implications, such as the idea that we're referring to a cohesive agglomeration, rather than a completely random confluence of otherwise utterly unrelated elements.

Furthermore, a glance at the shape of the region, as shown in the article, makes it clear that this is not an object in the sense that we usually use the word. It clearly did not form according the laws, as we understand them, which guide the formation of other "celestial objects", such as galaxies. At best, this would appear to be a collision of galaxies, which no more qualifies the resulting mishmash as "an object" than the results of a multi-car pile up.

Immunity Syndrome

[bobs666]

This was on the original Star Trek in the 1960s I guess its grown since then,

The galaxy is threatened by a giant space amoeba.