This cosmic structure surprised astronomers. We are unable to explain its origin

Even a large galaxy that can be seen from nine billion light-years away is just a point of light. Therefore, we can safely assume that no one would expect to see at such a distance a giant object that would occupy a significant part of the sky. Unfortunately, it turns out that the universe doesn’t care about our intuitions.

in the beginning of the year Announced a team of astronomers The discovery of a monstrous ring consisting of galaxies extending over a large portion of the sky. But the problem is that they are so large that in theory they should not have had the opportunity to form since the beginning of the universe. However, if it exists, it means that our knowledge about the evolution of the universe is still largely incomplete.

Read also: It shouldn’t be in space, but it is – The Great Arc is 3.3 billion light-years long

It is worth noting here that since we see an object at a distance of 9 billion light-years, it must appear as if we were seeing it when the universe was only less than 5 billion years old.

Scientists admit that it is difficult to understand how such a distinctive structure, with a diameter of 1.3 billion light-years, could have formed in just four billion years. These are unimaginable proportions. By comparison, our galaxy, which is not small at all and contains up to 400 billion stars, is only 100,000 light-years in diameter. Here we are talking about a ring of galaxies 13,000 times larger.

To give us an idea of ​​the size of the object we are talking about, scientists decided to determine its appearance in the night sky from the surface of the Earth. A good context here would be the things we observe in the sky every day. The diameter of the full moon is only 3,470 kilometers, but it is relatively close to us, as it is only 360,000 kilometers away from Earth. Four hundred and fifty times farther from Earth, at a distance of 150 million kilometers, is the Sun, which has a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers. Yes, the Sun is much larger than the Moon, but it is also much farther away, which is why – ironically! – In the sky it is exactly the same size as the full moon. There is nothing surprising in this. After all, we intuitively know that objects farther away from us appear smaller. Let’s keep flying. The closest spiral galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, which is approximately twice the size of the Milky Way, is 2.5 million light-years away from us, and occupies six times the area of ​​the Sun or the full moon.

So you might ask yourself how big a large ring of galaxies 9 billion light-years away from us in the night sky is.

Scientists point out that despite the enormous distance that separates us from it, the great ring will occupy an area with a diameter fifteen times larger than the disk of the full moon.

One could, of course, assume that the fact that galaxies are arranged in an enormous ring could be a coincidence, an amazing coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless. But the problem is that the researchers responsible for its discovery have already discovered what is called the Big Arc in the sky. The origin of this structure has not yet been determined. Especially since these two structures are visible in one or more directions in the sky.

This last piece of information is very interesting. After all, until now it had been commonly assumed that the universe looked the same everywhere on the largest scale, and was more or less homogeneous. However, the presence of the Great Bow and Great Ring seemed to contradict this.

Moreover, if these structures had formed naturally, it would be impossible for them to reach a size larger than 1.2 billion light-years in the first five billion years. They simply won’t have enough time for that. At the same time, we are dealing with a structure that does not know that and is larger than possible.

Therefore, the question arises about what we do not yet know about the universe, because everything indicates that it is much more interesting and more complex than we previously thought.