The discovery of the Great Ring, the mysterious star cluster that challenges our understanding of the size of the universe

A framework in form Extra large ringChallenging the current understanding of the universe by a group of scientists led by a graduate student is difficult to explain.

structure, known as The Great RingFormed by galaxies and galaxy clusters, located 9.2 billion light years from earth. The structure has a diameter of 1.3 billion light years and a circumference of 4 billion light years.

“If we could go out and see it directly, it would take about 15 full moons to cover the diameter of the Great Ring,” said scientists from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the United Kingdom, who obtained the view. In a statement.

The Great Ring is the second ultralarge structure discovered by doctoral student Alexia Lopez, who also two years ago Giant Bo in the sky.

Surprisingly, the Great Ring and the Giant Arc – which are 3.3 billion light years in diameter – are located in the same area. ‘Cosmological Neighbourhood’. Both appear at the same distance, at the same cosmic time, and are separated by only 12 degrees on the sky.

“According to current cosmological theories, we did not believe that structures of this scale were possible. “We might expect very large structures throughout our observable universe,” Lopez said. However, the Great Ring and the Giant Arc are two large structures and the universe There are also relative neighbors, which extraordinarily attractive”.

“Neither of these ultralarge structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe,” he continued. “Their super-large size, peculiar shapes and cosmic proximity must be telling us something important,” he added, adding that he didn’t know exactly what.

“One possibility is related to the Great Ring Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO). BAOs arise from oscillations in the early universe and should appear today, at least statistically. Spherical shells in the arrangement of galaxies”, mentioned the scientist. “However, a detailed analysis of the Great Ring revealed that it is not really consistent with the BAO’s explanation: the Great Ring is too big and not round.”

Lopez explained that other explanations that deviate from what is generally considered standard understanding in cosmology may be necessary. One possibility could be the conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) proposed by Roger Penrose, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. Rings in the universe can be a sign of CCC.

Another explanation could be the effect of the passage of the so-called ‘cosmic ropes’. There is a cosmic string Filamentary “topological defect” of large size, which could have been created in the early universe.

Another Nobel laureate, Jim Peebles, recently speculated that cosmic strings may play a role in the origin of some other peculiarities in the large-scale distribution of galaxies.

The Great Ring, however, defies the cosmological principle, as the Giant Arc did before. And if the Great Ring and the Giant Arc combine to form an even larger structure, the challenge to the cosmological principle becomes even more compelling.

The University of Central Lancashire said in its statement that such massive structures, They challenge the idea of ​​what an “average” region is like From outer space. They exceed the size limit of what is considered theoretically viable and pose potential challenges to cosmological theory.

“Cosmological theory assumes that the part of the universe we can see is supposed to be a ‘faithful sample’ of what we expect the rest of the universe to be like,” Lopez said. “When we look at the universe on a large scale we expect matter to be evenly distributed throughout space, so there shouldn’t be any significant irregularities above a certain size.”

Scientists presenting their findings about the Great Ring at an upcoming meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week concluded that the identification of two extraordinary ultralarge structures in such close configuration raises the possibility that together they form an even more extraordinary cosmological system. .