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Astronomers Discover Largest Structure In the Universe

Posted by samzenpus on from the biggest-there-is dept.

KentuckyFC writes "Until now, the largest known structure in the Universe was the Huge-LQG (Large Quasar Group), a cluster of 73 quasars stretching over a distance of 4 billion light years. Now astronomers say they've spotted something even bigger in data from gamma ray bursts, the final explosions of energy released by stars as they die and the universe's most energetic events. Astronomers have measured the distance to 283 of these bursts and mapped their position in the universe. This throws up a surprise. At a distance of ten billion light years, there are more gamma ray bursts than expected if they were evenly distributed throughout the universe. This implies the existence of a structure at this distance that is about ten billion light years across and so dwarfs the Huge-LQG. What's odd about the discovery is that the Cosmological principle--one of the fundamental tenets of cosmology--holds that the distribution of matter in the universe will appear uniform if viewed at a large enough scale. And yet, structures clearly emerge at every scale astronomers can see. The new discovery doesn't disprove the principle but it does provide some interesting food for thought for theorists."

5 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Turtles, all the way up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe we're at the bottom of the turtles after all?

    1. Re:Turtles, all the way up! by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't know about that, maybe we just can't look at tiny enough particles to see it's turtles all the way down also? Who know what's inside quarks?

      Very very very old clams.

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    2. Re:Turtles, all the way up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Who know what's inside quarks?

      Some dabo tables and holodecks for starters.

  2. Re:The universe is lumpy by Scarletdown · · Score: 3, Funny

    Isn't Kareem of Wheat what Buckwheat changed his name to after converting to Islam?

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  3. Why are the surprised? by ciderbrew · · Score: 3, Funny

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