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Largest Object in the Universe Discovered

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that's-a-big-twinkie dept.

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."

18 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years by nincehelser · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    1. Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years by roseblood · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
    2. Re:That's 200 Million, not 200 Light Years by B'Trey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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 legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.

  2. Gee, Captain... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Funny

    It looks like we've got the Immunity Syndrome.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  3. No way by Eightyford · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's even bigger than Bono's ego!

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
    1. Re:No way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
      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...)

  4. Submission is wrong by nefele · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Remember by Eightyford · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
  6. We're doomed by lysergic.acid · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.
  7. Size 42 by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  8. An enormous amoeba-like structure... by ptelligence · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stuck to the lens of the telescope.

  9. The Wall? by Zarhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

  10. Re:The largest? by MindStalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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. :)

  11. Space is big by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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

  12. Press release by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... 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.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  13. Fixed... by Hosiah · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Largest Object in the Universe discovered."


    Whoops, sorry. Forgot to zip up...

  14. Problem with pseudo-scientists by MisterSquid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

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    blog
    1. Re:Problem with pseudo-scientists by MisterSquid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

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      blog