10 largest objects in the universe. The most massive objects in the universe
The ancient pyramids, the tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai, almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - just looking at these huge objects is breathtaking. And at the same time, compared to some objects in the universe, they are microscopic in size.
The largest asteroid
Today, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes referred to as a "dwarf planet".largest planet
In the photo: on the left - Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, on the right - TRES4 In the constellation Hercules is the planet TRES4, the size of which is 70% larger than the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in solar system. But the mass of TRES4 is inferior to the mass of Jupiter. This is due to the fact that the planet is very close to the Sun and is formed by gases constantly heated by the Sun - as a result, in terms of density, this heavenly body resembles a kind of marshmallow.The biggest star
In 2013, astronomers discovered KY Cygnus, the largest star in the universe to date; the radius of this red supergiant is 1650 times the radius of the Sun.The biggest black hole
In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, given their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, whose mass is 17 billion times (!) More than the mass of the Sun. This is a huge black hole at the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object that is larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.largest galaxy
The so-called "super galaxies" are several galaxies merged together and located in galactic "clusters", clusters of galaxies. The largest of these "super galaxies" is IC1101, which is 60 times the size of the galaxy that hosts our solar system. The length of IC1101 is 6 million light years. By comparison, the Milky Way is only 100,000 light-years across.Shapley Supercluster
The Shapley Supercluster is a collection of galaxies over 400 million light-years across. The Milky Way is about 4,000 times smaller than this super galaxy. The Shapley Supercluster is so much larger that the fastest spacecraft It would take the Earth trillions of years to cross it.Huge-LQG group of quasars
A huge group of quasars was discovered in January 2013 and today is considered the largest structure in the whole universe. Huge-LQG is a collection of 73 quasars so large that it would take over 4 billion years to traverse from one end to the other at the speed of light. The mass of this grandiose space object is approximately 3 million times the mass of the Milky Way. The Huge-LQG group of quasars is so grand that its existence disproves Einstein's basic cosmological principle. According to this cosmological position, the universe always looks the same, no matter where the observer is.space network
Not so long ago, astronomers managed to discover something absolutely amazing - a cosmic network formed by clusters of galaxies surrounded by dark matter, and resembling a giant three-dimensional spider web. How big is this interstellar network? If the Milky Way galaxy were an ordinary seed, then this cosmic network would be the size of a huge stadium.The science
Of course, the oceans are vast, and the mountains are incredibly high. What's more, the 7 billion people that the Earth is home to is also an incredibly large number. But, living in this world, with a diameter of 12,742 kilometers, it is easy to forget that this is, in essence, a trifle for such a thing as space. When we look into the night sky, we realize that we are just a grain of sand in a vast infinite universe. We invite you to learn about the largest objects in space, the size of some of them is difficult for us to imagine.
1) Jupiter
The largest planet in the solar system (142,984 kilometers in diameter)
Jupiter is the largest planet in our star system. Ancient astronomers named this planet after Jupiter, the father of the Roman gods. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. The planet's atmosphere is 84 percent hydrogen and 15 percent helium. Everything else is acetylene, ammonia, ethane, methane, phosphine and water vapor.
The mass of Jupiter is 318 times the mass of the Earth, and the diameter is 11 times greater. The mass of this giant is 70 percent of the mass of all the planets in the solar system. Jupiter's volume is large enough to contain 1,300 Earth-like planets. Jupiter has 63 known moons, but most of them are incredibly small and fuzzy.
2) Sun
The largest object in the solar system (1,391,980 kilometers in diameter)
Our Sun is a yellow dwarf star, the largest object in the star system in which we exist. The sun contains 99.8 percent of the mass of this entire system, most the rest of the mass comes from Jupiter. The Sun is currently 70 percent hydrogen and 28 percent helium, with the remaining matter accounting for just 2 percent of its mass.
Over time, the hydrogen in the Sun's core turns into helium. Conditions in the Sun's core, which is 25 percent of its diameter, are extreme. The temperature is 15.6 million Kelvin and the pressure is 250 billion atmospheres. The energy of the Sun is achieved through nuclear fusion reactions. Every second, approximately 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted into 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.
3) Our solar system
15*10 12 kilometers in diameter
Our solar system includes just one star, which is the central object, and nine major planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as many satellites, millions of solid asteroids and billions of icy comets.
4) Star VY Canis Major
The largest star in the universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter)
VY Big Dog- the largest known star and one of the most bright stars in the sky. It is a red hypergiant located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is about 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is about 3 billion kilometers.
If this star were placed in our solar system, it would close the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers believe that VY is actually smaller—about 600 times the size of the Sun—and therefore would only reach the orbit of Mars.
5) Huge deposits of water
Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reservoir of water ever found in the universe. The giant cloud, about 12 billion years old, contains 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.
A cloud of gaseous water surrounds a supermassive black hole located 12 billion light-years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost its entire existence, the researchers said.
6) Extremely large and massive black holes
21 billion solar masses
Supermassive black holes are the largest black holes in the galaxy, weighing hundreds or even thousands of millions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all, galaxies, including Milky Way, according to scientists, contain supermassive black holes at their centers.
One such monster, 21 million times the mass of the Sun, is an egg-shaped funnel of stars in NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the stretched cloud of thousands of galaxies. The hole is located about 336 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so huge that it is 12 times larger than our solar system in diameter.
7) Milky Way
100-120 thousand light years in diameter
The Milky Way is a broken spiral galaxy that contains 200-400 billion stars. There are many planets revolving around each of these stars.
According to some estimates, 10 billion planets are in the habitable zone, revolving around their parent stars, that is, in zones where there are all conditions for the origin of life like Earth.
8) El Gordo
The largest cluster of galaxies (2 * 10 15 solar masses)
El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light-years from Earth, so what we are seeing today is just an early stage of it. According to the researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits the most radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further.
The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The authors of the studies suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.
Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical imaging, scientists estimate that 1 percent of the cluster's total mass is stars, and the rest is hot gas that fills the space between the stars. This ratio of stars to gas is similar to the ratio in other massive clusters.
9) Our Universe
Size - 156 billion light years
Of course, no one could ever name the exact dimensions of the Universe, but, according to some estimates, its diameter is 1.5 * 10 24 kilometers. In general, it is difficult for us to imagine that there is an end somewhere, because the Universe includes incredibly gigantic objects:
Earth Diameter: 1.27*104km
Sun diameter: 1.39*106 km
Solar system: 2.99 * 10 10 km or 0.0032 sv. l.
Distance from the Sun to the nearest star: 4.5 sv. l.
Milky Way: 1.51*10 18 km or 160,000 sv. l.
Local group of galaxies: 3.1 * 10 19 km or 6.5 million sv. l.
Local supercluster: 1.2 * 10 21 km or 130 million sv. l.
10) Multiverse
One can try to imagine not one, but many Universes that exist at the same time. The Multiverse (or Multiple Universe) is a possible collection of many possible Universes, including our own, which together comprise everything that exists or can exist: the integrity of space, time, material matter and energy, and physical laws and the constants that describe it all.
However, the existence of other Universes besides ours has not been proven, so it is very likely that our Universe is the only one of its kind.
October 27, 2015, 03:38 pmThe ancient pyramids, the tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai, almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - just looking at these huge objects is breathtaking. And at the same time, compared to some objects in the universe, they are microscopic in size.
The largest asteroid
Today, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes referred to as a "dwarf planet".
largest planet
The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. A planet called TrES-4 orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.
The planet TrES-4 itself is a ball that consists mainly of hydrogen. Its size is 20 times the size of the Earth. The researchers claim that the diameter of the discovered planet is almost 2 times (more precisely, 1.7) the diameter of Jupiter (this is the largest planet in the solar system). The temperature of TrES-4 is about 1260 degrees Celsius.
The biggest black hole
In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, given their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, whose mass is 17 billion times (!) More than the mass of the Sun. This is a huge black hole at the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object that is larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.
largest galaxy
The so-called "super galaxies" are several galaxies merged together and located in galactic "clusters", clusters of galaxies. The largest of these "super galaxies" is IC1101, which is 60 times the size of the galaxy that hosts our solar system. The length of IC1101 is 6 million light years. By comparison, the Milky Way is only 100,000 light-years across.
The largest star in the universe
VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star and one of the brightest stars in the sky. It is a red hypergiant located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is about 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is about 3 billion kilometers.
Huge deposits of water
Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reservoir of water ever found in the universe. The giant cloud, about 12 billion years old, contains 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.
A cloud of gaseous water surrounds a supermassive black hole located 12 billion light-years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost its entire existence, the researchers said.
largest cluster of galaxies
El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light-years from Earth, so what we are seeing today is just an early stage of it. According to the researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits the most radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further.
The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The authors of the studies suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.
Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical imaging, scientists estimate that 1 percent of the cluster's total mass is stars, and the rest is hot gas that fills the space between the stars. This ratio of stars to gas is similar to the ratio in other massive clusters.
SuperVoid
More recently, scientists have discovered the largest cold spot in the universe (at least known to the science of the universe). It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With its length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists, because they could not even imagine that such an object could really exist.
Despite the presence of the word “void” in the title (from the English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer clusters of galaxies than their surroundings. According to scientists, voids make up to 50 percent of the volume of the universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter around them. Two things make this void interesting: its unimaginable size and its relation to the mysterious cold relic spot WMAP.
superblob
In 2006, the title of the largest object in the universe was given to the discovered mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them). True, he retained this title for a short time. This 200-million-light-year-long bubble is a gigantic collection of gas, dust, and galaxies.
Each of the three "tentacles" of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser among themselves than is usual in the universe. The cluster of galaxies and gas balls inside this bubble are called Liman-Alpha bubbles. These objects are believed to have formed about 2 billion years after big bang and are real relics of the ancient universe.
Shapley Supercluster
For many years, scientists have believed that our Milky Way galaxy is being pulled across the universe toward the constellation Centaurus at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour. Astronomers theorize that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with a gravitational force that is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, scientists could not figure out what kind of object this was for a long time, since this object is located beyond the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), a region of the sky near the plane of the Milky Way, where the absorption of light by interstellar dust is so great that it is impossible to see what is behind it.
As soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the "great cosmic magnet" is a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.
The Shapley Supercluster is a supermassive cluster of galaxies. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being pulled by this supercluster.
Supercluster Laniakea
Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. The regions of space where these clusters are more closely spaced are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the universe, but recently a new way mapping of local space, which shed light on data previously unknown to astronomy.
The new principle of mapping the local space and the galaxies located in it is based not so much on the calculation of the physical location of the object, but on the measurement of the gravitational effect exerted by it.
The first results of the study of our local galaxies using the new research method have already been obtained. Scientists, based on the boundaries of the gravitational flow, mark a new supercluster. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it will allow us to better understand where our place in the universe is. It was previously believed that the Milky Way is located inside the Virgo supercluster, however new method research shows that this region is only an arm of the even larger Laniakea supercluster - one of the largest objects in the universe. It stretches for 520 million light years, and somewhere inside it we are.
Great Wall of Sloan
The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a gigantic galactic filament of multiple superclusters spread out across the universe like the tentacles of a giant octopus. At 1.4 billion light-years long, the "wall" was once thought to be the largest object in the universe.
The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as well understood as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together look like giant tendrils from the side. Another supercluster has very high level interactions of galaxies, many of which are now undergoing a period of merger.
Group of quasars Huge-LQG7
Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the center of quasars are supermassive black holes, which pull on the surrounding matter. This results in huge radiation, which is 1000 times more powerful than all the stars inside the galaxy. Currently, the third largest object in the universe is the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over 4 billion light-years. Scientists believe that this massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the main precursors and sources of the largest objects in the universe, such as, for example, Sloane's Great Wall.
Giant gamma ring
Stretching for 5 billion light years, the Giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is the second largest object in the universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. Astronomers studying bursts of gamma rays (huge bursts of energy that are formed as a result of the death of massive stars) discovered a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from the Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky, 70 times the diameter of the full moon.
Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona
The largest object in the universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of their observation of gamma rays. This object, dubbed the Great Wall of Hercules - the Northern Corona, spans 10 billion light-years, making it twice the size of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring. Since the brightest bursts of gamma rays are produced by larger stars, usually located in areas of space where there is more matter, astronomers each time metaphorically see each such burst as a needle prick into something larger. When scientists discovered that there were too many gamma ray bursts in the region of space towards the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, they determined that there was an astronomical object here, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.
space web
Scientists believe that the expansion of the universe is not random. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of the cosmos are organized into one incredible structure, resembling filamentous connections that unite dense regions. These filaments are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.
According to scientists, the web formed at a very early stage in the history of the universe. The early stage of the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the universe. It is believed that the "threads" of this web played a big role in the evolution of the Universe, thanks to which this evolution accelerated. The galaxies inside these filaments have a significantly higher star formation rate. In addition, these threads are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. Once formed in these filaments, galaxies travel to galaxy clusters where they eventually die.
Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web really is. Moreover, they even detected its presence in the radiation of the distant quasar they were studying. Quasars are known to be the brightest objects in the universe. The light of one of them went straight to one of the filaments, which heated up the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists have drawn threads between other galaxies, thus compiling a picture of the "skeleton of the cosmos."
Thanks to rapid development technology, astronomers are making more and more interesting and incredible discoveries in the universe. For example, the title of "the largest object in the universe" passes from one find to another almost every year. Some open objects are so huge that they baffle even the best scientists of our planet with their existence. Let's talk about the ten largest of them.
SuperVoid
More recently, scientists have discovered the largest cold spot in the universe (at least known to the science of the universe). It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With its length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists, because they could not even imagine that such an object could really exist.
Despite the presence of the word “void” in the title (from the English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer clusters of galaxies than their surroundings. According to scientists, voids make up to 50 percent of the volume of the universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter around them. Two things make this void interesting: its unimaginable size and its relation to the mysterious cold relic spot WMAP.
Interestingly, the new discovered supervoid is now perceived by scientists as the best explanation for such a phenomenon as cold spots, or regions of outer space filled with cosmic relic (background) microwave radiation. Scientists have been arguing for a long time what these cold spots really are.
One proposed theory, for example, suggests that cold spots are the fingerprints of black holes. parallel universes caused by quantum entanglement between universes.
However, many modern scientists are more inclined to believe that the appearance of these cold spots can be provoked by supervoids. This is explained by the fact that when protons pass through a void, they lose their energy and become weaker.
However, it is possible that the location of supervoids relatively close to the location of cold spots may be a mere coincidence. Scientists still have a lot of research to do on this and eventually find out whether the voids are the cause of the mysterious cold spots or their source is something else.
superblob
In 2006, the title of the largest object in the universe was given to the discovered mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them). True, he retained this title for a short time. This 200-million-light-year-long bubble is a gigantic collection of gas, dust, and galaxies. With some caveats, this object looks like a giant green jellyfish. The object was discovered by Japanese astronomers when they were studying one of the regions of space known for the presence of a huge volume of cosmic gas. It was possible to find the blob thanks to the use of a special telescopic filter, which unexpectedly indicated the presence of this bubble.
Each of the three "tentacles" of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser among themselves than is usual in the universe. The cluster of galaxies and gas balls inside this bubble are called Liman-Alpha bubbles. It is believed that these objects were formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are real relics of the ancient Universe. Scientists speculate that the blob itself formed when massive stars that existed in the early days of space suddenly went supernova and released a gigantic volume of gas. The object is so massive that scientists believe that it is, by and large, one of the first cosmic objects to form in the universe. According to theories, over time, more and more new galaxies will form from the accumulated gas here.
Shapley Supercluster
For many years, scientists have believed that our Milky Way galaxy is being pulled across the universe toward the constellation Centaurus at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour. Astronomers theorize that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with a gravitational force that is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, scientists could not figure out what kind of object this was for a long time, since this object is located beyond the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), a region of the sky near the plane of the Milky Way, where the absorption of light by interstellar dust is so great that it is impossible to see what is behind it.
However, over time, X-ray astronomy came to the rescue, which developed strongly enough that it made it possible to look beyond the ZOA region and find out what is causing such a strong gravitational pool. All that scientists saw turned out to be an ordinary cluster of galaxies, which baffled scientists even more. These galaxies could not be the Great Attractor and could not have enough gravity to attract our Milky Way. This figure is only 44 percent of the required. However, as soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the "great cosmic magnet" is a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.
The Shapley Supercluster, which is a supermassive cluster of galaxies, is located behind the Great Attractor. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that it attracts both the Attractor itself and our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being pulled by this supercluster.
Great Wall CfA2
Like most of the objects on this list, the Great Wall (also known as the CfA2 Great Wall) once also boasted the title of the largest known space object in the universe. It was discovered by American astrophysicist Margaret Joan Geller and John Peter Huchra while studying the redshift effect for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. According to scientists, it is 500 million light years long and 16 million light years wide. In its shape, it resembles the Great Wall of China. Hence the nickname he got.
The exact dimensions of the Great Wall are still a mystery to scientists. It could be much larger than thought, spanning 750 million light-years. The problem in determining the exact dimensions lies in its location. As in the case of the Shapley supercluster, the Great Wall is partially covered by the "zone of avoidance".
In general, this “zone of avoidance” does not allow us to see about 20 percent of the observable (reachable for current technologies) Universe, because dense accumulations of gas and dust (as well as a high concentration of stars) located inside the Milky Way greatly distort optical wavelengths. In order to see through the "zone of avoidance", astronomers have to use other types of waves, such as infrared, which can penetrate another 10 percent of the "zone of avoidance". Through which infrared waves cannot penetrate, radio waves, as well as waves of the near infrared spectrum and X-rays. However, the actual inability to see such a large region of space is somewhat frustrating for scientists. The "Zone of Avoidance" may contain information that could fill gaps in our knowledge of the cosmos.
Supercluster Laniakea
Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. The regions of space where these clusters are more closely spaced are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the universe, but recently a new way of mapping local space has been invented, shedding light on data previously unknown to astronomy.
The new principle of mapping the local space and the galaxies located in it is based not so much on the calculation of the physical location of the object, but on the measurement of the gravitational effect exerted by it. Thanks to the new method, the location of galaxies is determined and, on the basis of this, a map of the distribution of gravity in the Universe is compiled. Compared to the old ones, the new method is more advanced because it allows astronomers not only to mark new objects in the universe we see, but also to find new objects in places where it was not possible to look before. Since the method is based on measuring the level of influence of certain galaxies, and not on observing these galaxies, thanks to it we can even find objects that we cannot directly see.
The first results of the study of our local galaxies using the new research method have already been obtained. Scientists, based on the boundaries of the gravitational flow, mark a new supercluster. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it will allow us to better understand where our place in the universe is. The Milky Way was previously thought to be inside the Virgo supercluster, but a new method of investigation shows that this region is just an arm of the even larger Laniakea supercluster, one of the largest objects in the universe. It stretches for 520 million light years, and somewhere inside it we are.
Great Wall of Sloan
The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a gigantic galactic filament of multiple superclusters spread out across the universe like the tentacles of a giant octopus. At 1.4 billion light-years long, the "wall" was once thought to be the largest object in the universe.
The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as well understood as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together look like giant tendrils from the side. Another supercluster has a very high level of interaction between galaxies, many of which are currently undergoing a merger.
The presence of the "wall" and any other larger objects creates new questions about the mysteries of the universe. Their existence goes against the cosmological principle, which theoretically limits how big objects in the universe can be. According to this principle, the laws of the universe do not allow the existence of objects larger than 1.2 billion light years. However, objects like the Great Wall of Sloan completely contradict this opinion.
Group of quasars Huge-LQG7
Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the center of quasars are supermassive black holes, which pull on the surrounding matter. This results in huge radiation, which is 1000 times more powerful than all the stars inside the galaxy. Currently, the third largest object in the universe is the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over 4 billion light-years. Scientists believe that this massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the main precursors and sources of the largest objects in the universe, such as, for example, Sloane's Great Wall.
The Huge-LQG group of quasars was discovered after analyzing the same data that discovered the Great Wall of Sloan. Scientists determined its presence after mapping one of the regions of space using a special algorithm that measures the density of quasars in a certain area.
It should be noted that the very existence of Huge-LQG is still a matter of controversy. While some scientists believe that this region of space does indeed represent a group of quasars, other scientists believe that the quasars within this region of space are randomly distributed and not part of the same group.
Giant gamma ring
Stretching for 5 billion light years, the Giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is the second largest object in the universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. Astronomers studying bursts of gamma rays (huge bursts of energy that are formed as a result of the death of massive stars) discovered a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from the Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky, 70 times the diameter of the full moon. Considering that gamma-ray bursts themselves are quite a rare occurrence, the chance that they will form a similar shape in the sky is 1 in 20,000. This allowed scientists to believe that they are witnessing one of the largest objects in the universe.
By itself, "ring" is just a term to describe the visual representation of this phenomenon as seen from Earth. There are theories that the giant gamma-ray ring may be a projection of a sphere around which all gamma-ray bursts occurred in a relatively short period of time, about 250 million years. True, here the question arises as to what kind of source could create such a sphere. One explanation revolves around the possibility that galaxies may cluster around a huge concentration of dark matter. However, this is just a theory. Scientists still don't know how these structures form.
Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona
The largest object in the universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of their observation of gamma rays. This object, dubbed the Great Wall of Hercules - the Northern Corona, spans 10 billion light-years, making it twice the size of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring. Since the brightest bursts of gamma rays are produced by larger stars, usually located in areas of space where there is more matter, astronomers each time metaphorically see each such burst as a needle prick into something larger. When scientists discovered that there were too many gamma ray bursts in the region of space towards the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, they determined that there was an astronomical object here, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.
An interesting fact: the name "The Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Crown" was coined by a Filipino teenager who wrote it down on Wikipedia (anyone who does not know can edit this electronic encyclopedia). Shortly after the news that astronomers had discovered a huge structure in the cosmic sky, a corresponding article appeared on the pages of Wikipedia. Despite the fact that the invented name does not quite accurately describe this object (the wall covers several constellations at once, and not just two), the world Internet quickly got used to it. Perhaps this is the first time that Wikipedia has given a name to a discovered and interesting scientific point vision of the object.
Since the very existence of this “wall” also contradicts the cosmological principle, scientists have to reconsider some of their theories about how the universe actually formed.
space web
Scientists believe that the expansion of the universe is not random. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of the cosmos are organized into one incredible structure, resembling filamentous connections that unite dense regions. These filaments are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.
According to scientists, the web formed at a very early stage in the history of the universe. The early stage of the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the universe. It is believed that the "threads" of this web played a big role in the evolution of the Universe, thanks to which this evolution accelerated. The galaxies inside these filaments have a significantly higher star formation rate. In addition, these threads are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. Once formed in these filaments, galaxies travel to galaxy clusters where they eventually die.
Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web really is. Moreover, they even detected its presence in the radiation of the distant quasar they were studying. Quasars are known to be the brightest objects in the universe. The light of one of them went straight to one of the filaments, which heated up the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists have drawn threads between other galaxies, thus compiling a picture of the "skeleton of the cosmos."
1 light second ≈ 300,000 km;
1 light minute ≈ 18,000,000 km;
1 light hour ≈ 1,080,000,000 km;
1 light day ≈ 26,000,000,000 km;
1 light week ≈ 181,000,000,000 km;
1 light month ≈ 790,000,000,000 km.
R136a1 is the most massive star known to date in the universe. Credit & Copyright: Joannie Dennis / flickr, CC BY-SA.
Looking at the night sky, you understand that you are just a grain of sand in the vast expanse of space.
But, many of us may also wonder: what is the most massive object known to date in the universe?
In a sense, the answer to this question depends on what we mean by the word "object". Astronomers observe structures such as the Great Wall of Hercules-Northern Corona, a colossal filament of gas, dust and dark matter containing billions of galaxies. Its length is about 10 billion light years, so this structure can be named after the largest object. But not everything is so simple. The classification of this cluster as a unique object is problematic due to the fact that it is difficult to determine exactly where it begins and where it ends.
In fact, in physics and astrophysics, “object” is well defined, said Scott Chapman, an astrophysicist at Dalhousie University in Halifax:
“It is something that is bound together by its own gravitational forces, such as a planet, a star, or stars revolving around a common center of mass.
Using this definition it becomes a little easier to understand what is the most massive object in the universe. In addition, this definition can be applied to various objects depending on the scale under consideration.
A photo north pole Jupiter taken by Pioneer 11 in 1974. Credit & Copyright: NASA Ames.
To our relatively tiny species, the planet Earth, at 6 septillion kilograms, seems huge. But it's not even the largest planet in the solar system. Gas giants: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter are much larger. The mass of Jupiter, for example, is 1.9 octillion kilograms. Researchers have found thousands of planets orbiting other stars, including many that make our gas giants look small. Discovered in 2016, HR2562 b is the most massive exoplanet, about 30 times more massive than Jupiter. At this size, astronomers are not sure whether it should be considered a planet or classified as a dwarf star.
In this case, the stars can grow to enormous sizes. The most massive known star is R136a1, its mass is between 265 and 315 times the mass of our Sun (2 nonillion kilograms). Located 130,000 light-years from the Large Magellanic Cloud, our satellite galaxy, this star is so bright that the light it emits actually tears it apart. According to a 2010 study electromagnetic radiation, emanating from a star so powerful that it can carry away material from its surface, causing the star to lose about 16 Earth masses every year. Astronomers do not know exactly how such a star could form, and how long it will exist.
Enormous stars nestled in the stellar nursery RMC 136a in the Tarantula Nebula, in one of our neighboring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away. Credit & Copyright: ESO / VLT.
The next massive objects are galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light-years across and contains about 200 billion stars, totaling about 1.7 trillion solar masses. However, the Milky Way cannot compete with the central galaxy of the Phoenix Cluster, located 2.2 million light years away and containing about 3 trillion stars. At the center of this galaxy is a supermassive black hole- the largest ever discovered - with an approximate mass of 20 billion suns. The Phoenix Cluster itself is a huge cluster of about 1000 galaxies with a total mass of about 2 quadrillion suns.
But even this cluster cannot compete with what is probably the most massive object ever discovered: the galactic protocluster known as SPT2349.
“We hit the jackpot by finding this structure,” said Chapman, leader of the team that discovered the new record holder. “More than 14 very massive individual galaxies located in space not much larger than our own Milky Way.”
Artist's illustration showing 14 galaxies that are in the process of merging and will eventually form the core of a massive cluster of galaxies. Credit & Copyright: NRAO / AUI / NSF; S. Dagnello.
This cluster began to form when the universe was less than 1.5 billion years old. The individual galaxies in this cluster will eventually coalesce into one giant galaxy, the most massive in the universe. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, Chapman said. Further observations showed that general structure contains about 50 satellite galaxies, which in the future will be absorbed by the central galaxy. The previous record holder, known as the El Gordo Cluster, has a mass of 3 quadrillion suns, but SPT2349 likely outweighs that by at least four to five times.
That such a huge object could have formed when the universe was only 1.4 billion years old surprised astronomers, because computer models suggested that it would take much longer for such large objects to form.
Given that humans have only explored a small portion of the sky, it is likely that even more massive objects could lurk far out in the universe.