Astronomers Discover Largest Structure In the Universe

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."

Comments

Enter Metaphysics

[some old guy]

The real importance of such observations and discoveries lies not in their ability to test existing hypothesis but in furthering our ability to form new ones.

Re:Enter Metaphysics

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that we have a relatively well developed mathematical articulation of 'random', and the likelihood of various outcomes arising from a random distribution, it should presumably be possible to determine that a given observed outcome is more or less probable as the result of a random distribution. That doesn't necessarily supply any causal suspicion of having arisen other than randomly; but it's still measurable.

"Structure" seems like a poor word, given the heavy connotations of purposeful design or systemic interaction; but choosing a statistical cut-off and taking particular interest in outcomes less probable than that, given the assumptions about the underlying distribution, is in principle sound enough(though it may simply mean that an improbable outcome happened, rather than that the assumptions about the underlying distribution were wrong).

It's like watching the payouts of N slot machines over the course of an evening: If you know, or have a hypothesis, about the odds of the game, you can tell how far a given outcome deviates from the expected distribution, though even observing an extraordinarily unlikely one cannot prove that the game was being rigged, though it can suggest it strongly enough to send you looking for clues in that direction.

Re: And I should care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because they're Hungarian

Re:What, again?

[mynamestolen]

1989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CfA2_Great_Wall
The Great Wall (also called Coma Wall), sometimes specifically referred to as the CfA2 Great Wall, is one of the largest known superstructures in the Universe, (the largest being the Huge-LQG). It is a filament of galaxies approximately 200 million light-years away and has dimensions which measure over 500 million light-years long, 300 million light-years wide and 16 million light-years thick, and includes the Hercules Supercluster, the Coma Supercluster and the Leo Cluster.[1]
It was discovered in 1989 by Margaret Geller and John Huchra based on redshift survey data from the CfA Redshift Survey.

Re:Random distribution

[boristhespider]

Thank God we have people on Slashdot to tell us things like this. Where would we have been if generations of cosmologists were entirely ignorant of statistics or gravitational physics? The mind boggles!

Sorry, but the problem isn't that there are lumps - if there weren't our existence would be a bit suspect since we live on the edge of a reasonably large lump (the Virgo supercluster) ourselves. The problem (if you want to call it a problem; it's more an interesting question) concerns the *size* of the lumps. We can predict with reasonable certainty the probability of a bound structure of such and such a size appearing in the universe. That's quite straightforward in principle. And structures this big are pushing the bounds of the standard cosmological model quite hard; basically, they shouldn't really be there. I don't know the actual probability but it's extremely low, and low enough that we would not expect to see it. That there are now three structures that are rather too large (this one, if it comes to be accepted as a genuine structure; the Sloan great wall, if it turns out to actually be a structure; and the CfA great wall) is getting interesting.

Re:quasardilla supreme

[kruach aum]

Science is the systematic observation of everything in our world and universe; it is the best and most successful way we have discovered for determining what is true and what is not. That does not mean that it cannot make mistakes, but it does mean that mistakes can be noticed, making it a self-correcting process, trudging ever forward towards greater accuracy and understanding. Pointing out that science makes mistakes is pointing out a part of how the scientific process works and achieves progress; it's not a bane, it's a boon.