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

[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.

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: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.

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.