Two mysterious and huge space structures that challenge the understanding of the universe were presented a week ago during the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in the United States.
The two systems, called Giant Arch, were found two years ago– and the Great Ring do not match any known formation. These are located about 9.2 billion light-years from Earth and are in the same cosmological proximity.
“Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe. And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes and cosmological proximity must be telling us something important,” he said in a statement. by Alexia López, PhD astronomer at the University of Central Lancashire.
what are they then
The expert and her research team believed that the Great Ring could be related to the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO), which are large circular or spherical systems of galaxies that are spread throughout the universe.
However, the theory was rejected because BAO systems have a fixed size of about 1,000 million light-years across, about 300 million light-years smaller than the Great Ring.
“A detailed analysis of the Great Ring revealed that it is not actually compatible with the BAO explanation: The Great Ring is too big and not spherical,” adds López.
Problems for the cosmological principle
The cosmological principle says that on large scales and in different directions, the universe should have surfaces virtually the same as all others.
“We expect matter to be evenly distributed everywhere in the universe when we look at the universe on a large scale, so there shouldn’t be any noticeable irregularities beyond a certain size,” Lopez suggests.
The astronomer also believes that these colossal structures could be the result of the passage of so-called cosmic strings, which are large filamentary “topological defects” that may have formed in the early universe.
New secrets of the universe to uncover
Scientists now face a new challenge: “This is the seventh large structure discovered in the universe that contradicts the idea that the universe is smooth on the largest scales. If these structures are real, they are certainly food for thought.” to cosmologists and have accepted considerations of how the universe evolved,” Robert Massey, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society, told the BBC.
“The Great Ring and the Giant Arc, both individually and together, offer us great cosmological mysteries as we work to understand the universe and its evolution,” concludes López.
