Space exploration never fails to reveal new surprises, and this time astronomers have found the structure of a galaxy that challenges what was previously known about the universe.
It is a ring of galaxies that stretches over 1.3 billion light years. It is located near a similar structure discovered three years ago and was called the “Great Ring”, and it is its size that has confused the scientific community, as it is considered “too big” to exist.
And according to various astronomical principles, the observable universe should be homogeneous, without irregularities such as that represented by the existence of the Great Ring, which also does not fit other current scientific models.
“The cosmological principle assumes that the part of the universe that we can see is considered a ‘representative sample’ of what we expect the rest of the universe to be like. It is assumed that if we were to analyze the universe on a large scale, matter would be evenly distributed throughout space. Therefore, when analyzing large structures, discrepancies should not be detected,” explained Alexia López, a student at the University of Central Lancashire in England, who discovered both structures.
According to the specialist, until now it was calculated that the current theoretical limit of the size of the structures is 1.2 billion light years, which is a measurement that the mentioned structures do not meet. While the Giant Arc – as the first group of galaxies is known – is almost three times larger, the circumference of the Great Ring is comparable to the length of the Giant Arc.
“We thought structures of this size were not possible. We might expect to detect only one extremely large structure in the entire part of the universe that can be seen. But what fascinates us is that there are two huge structures and they are even located next to each other in space,” pointed out López.
There is still much to study about the Great Ring and the Giant Arc, but their mere discovery has opened up new perspectives for understanding our universe, as the development of new theories to explain this type of structure is already being discussed.
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