Unbelievably vast quasar cluster forces universe-sized rethink

It’s there, but it shouldn’t be: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has found a quasar cluster so large that it demands a re-assessment of theories about the universe. The problem with the Large Quasar Group is this: it’s too big. One of the assumptions astronomers draw from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is that at the …

[~mico]

Space is big.

You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

(c) Douglas Adams

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Space is big.

OK Douglas, isn't it time you stopped being dead for tax reasons like your friend Hotblack Desiato?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Space is big.

Mr Desiato is apparently back amongst the living, and is currently working as an expensive London estate agent.... or should I say "residential consultant". How art the mighty fallen, etc.

[Allan George Dyer]

Re: Space is big.

So he has returned to his original profession, though apparently not his partnership with Hotblack.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Space is big.

Adams named the character after the business.

[SleepGuy]

Buses, huh?

Well, assuming the standard London double-decker bus length of 8.4 m, then the Milky Way would measure 112,627,743,721,200,000,000 buses across! I suppose we could round this up to 113 sextillion buses...besides, sextillion has a certain ring to it! As far as the Virgo Cluster, it's 113 septillion buses across.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Buses, huh?

Wouldn't a line of busses that long be unstable due to self-gravity? Before you can finish placing them, they'd be getting all kinky...

[Fat Bob]

Re: Buses, huh?

...that would mean they'd all turn up at once.

[Chemist]

Re: Buses, huh?

"...that would mean they'd all turn up at once."

IF by once you mean over >4 billion years then yes

[Rukario]

Re: Buses, huh?

What's that in BoJo buses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Buses, huh?

Or 113 exabusses.

[Christoph]

Re: Buses, huh?

You wait ages for one bus, and then ...

[Silverburn]

Re: Buses, huh?

Just be thankful it's not bendy buses. You'd need a bit less of them, but half of them would be on fire.

[Dark Horse]

Re: Buses, huh?

So THAT'S how starts are born!

[Martin Budden]

@Silverburn

less ≠ fewer

[Ian Yates]

Re: Buses, huh?

My God... it's full of buses!

[Tim 11]

Re: Buses, huh?

I think you'll find it's about the same size as Wales.

[Anonymous Coward]

"astrophysical models have suggested that 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure."

There's a joke in there somewhere, but damned if I can make it happen.

[Paul_Murphy]

How about ....

Yo mamma so fat they have to re-write the laws of physics.

Yo mamma so fat the ran out of busses to compare her with.

and so on.

[Silverburn]

Re: How about ....

Yo mamma so fat even Einstein said "daaayyyym"

[James 36]

Re: How about ....

yo momma's so fat she is uniform in every direction

[BorkedAgain]

Re: How about ....

Dammit, I came on here to say " Yo momma's so fat she demands a re-assessment of theories about the universe." thinking I was being all hip and street and original, and you guys got there first with funnier variations.

You guys... :)

[hi_robb]

Re: How about ....

Your mamma's so fat she's the source of the unvierse's gravity.

I do though still prefer the classic...

Your mamma's so fat, when she fell down the stairs everyone thought Eastenders was coming on.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Can't make sense of this article

73 quasars distributed over four billion light years is not particularly dense. As is commonly supposed, a quasar is a black holse swallowing up stuff in the center of forming galaxies. If you see 73, you are looking down the axis of rotation of those holes in 73 cases. Doesn't sound a particularly surprising surprise, there must be tens of thousands of galaxies over 4 billion lys

[Crisp]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

It doesn't have to be dense. It just has to be gravitationally bound.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

It doesn't say anything about gravitationally bound or not.

Looks more like the expectation is that the universe's map should be greyish overall but now there is wrinkly black smudge in the corner. A fractal appears?

[Great Bu]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

The point of the original assumption that this observation makes less likely was that mathematically for the universe to appear to be the same for all observers then the largest such 'smudge' would be 1.2 billion light years, anything bigger would produce a big enough difference in the 'texture' of the universe that it would look different to different observers.

So whilst there are random variations in the appearance of the universe, these variations reach the level of non-randomness once they grow to more than the 1.2 billion light year size - it's like looking at the random fuzz on a TV showing just static, how many black pixels would need to cluster together before you started thinking they were not random after all ? This cluster is a big block of black pixels together which suggests that either it's not random or the assumption is wrong.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

Well, someone has already been editing the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_cosmology

[The First Dave]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

My first thought about all this was that it is stupid to assume that something random is going to be even on any scale - nothing that is _truly_ random actually looks like it is.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

But that is what randomness means (and there rather good definitions based on Kolmogorov complexity) - it is very very unlikely to yield anything beyond grayness.

That's why there are not many voices from the dead in white noise.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Can't make sense of this article

Finally a good explanation:

You, Andromeda, And The Largest Structure In The Universe

[~mico]

Re: A fractal appears

If a fractal indeed appears, it will be a scary discovery. I'm no Ph.D., but I think it may hint at some underlying properties of spacetime itself, namely, it not being 3-dimensional, perhaps even of non-integer dimension.

[jai]

That Einstein, eh? Always making assumptions to cut corners and avoid the hard work.

Well you know what they about assumptions? it makes an ass out of you and... and... mptions?

[Cloud & rain model of the Universe structure]

This is just fine with Car model.

"With its 73 members spanning four billion light years, the Large Quasar Group is a theoretical inconvenience, because astrophysical models have suggested that 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure."

This is always fine with structure of the Universe; "Cloud & rain model". This observation gives advantages to "Car model" against "The Big bang theory".

[I like noodles]

1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

I refuse to believe that there *is* an upper limit for the size of a structure.

[Tom_]

Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

It depends on your compiler.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

Similarly, I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

Sure it may be the speed at which we can perceive anything, but it always seemed a bit arbitrary. I don't have a degree in physics, but I would imagine that travelling at that speed, to an observer you'd be past before they see you pass, but this to me is no different from Concorde - you see it pass before you hear it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

@HolyFreakinGhost

Excellent response that answers my lay-understanding of physics.

Have an upvote!

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

Ultimately whether we like it or not, the point of physics is to make predictions and the predictions that come out of special relativity, both on a quantum and a classical level, match reality to whatever accuracy we can push it. That then implies that any theory we come up with to replace special relativity has to mimic it in these regimes so closely as to be indistinguishable.

World class summation IMHO :). Have an upvote!

[Martin]

....I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

I've recommended this here before, but Relativity and Common Sense (by Hermann Bondi) is a good introduction from first principles to the strange things that happen at high speeds. It makes no assumptions about your knowledge - you just need to know a bit of obvious classical mechanics and be able to follow some simple algebra and diagrams.

Excellent book. Convinced me when I was a 6th former and thought as you did. My Physics teacher recommended it to me.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: ....I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

"the foundations of special relativity look rather absurd -- they basically state, as an input assumption, that all observers will measure light travelling at the speed of light *regardless of their own speed*. So when we're travelling towards the Sun and travelling away from it, we measure exactly the same speed. Absurd."

Apparently not.

Mitch Feigenbaum thinks this is all a straightforward extension of Galilean thought... this is a paper I have yet to read though.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1234

"We determine the Lorentz transformations and the kinematic content and dynamical framework of special relativity as purely an extension of Galileo's thoughts. No reference to light is ever required: The theories of relativity are logically independent of any properties of light. The thoughts of Galileo are fully realized in a system of Lorentz transformations with a parameter 1/c^2, some undetermined, universal constant of nature; and are realizable in no other. Isotropy of space plays a deep and pivotal role in all of this, since here three-dimensional space appears at first blush, and persists until the conclusion: Relativity can never correctly be fully developed in just one spatial dimension."

See also

Math in the News

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Galaxies and statistics

An ensemble of universes would on average be isotropic.

[Grease Monkey]

The register might not be about to publish an "Einstein Wrong" headline, but I'll bet there are plenty of publications out there who will...

[Somerset John]

Group...........what group?

What makes this a group?

4 billion light years is a significant fraction of the size of the entire known universe. Given that Quasars are active galactic nuclei (I assume this is the case on current evidence) there are likely millions, if not billions, of them. 73 is a pretty insignificant number compared to the total, so insignificant that whatever common characteristic leads observers to consider them a group may be no more than coincidence.

I would not be terribly surprised if this went the way of the FTL neutrino.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Group...........what group?

If you measure it in London buses, would it not be a TfL neutrino?

[Chandy]

crowded

Wait a minute. There's something out there that's nearly 30% the width of the universe? I had always pictured the universe to be so big that it meant that everything in it, no matter its size, would be relatively small in comparison.. Methinks that there will be an udpating at some point soon of the 13.7 billion light years current estimate to something substantially bigger. I'm going for at least 500 billion light years.

[Chandy]

Re: crowded

My mistake. Okay, so it's 93 billion light years wide, so about 5%. Still way too big.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: crowded

Where did 30% come from? Not that it's wrong: if you apply Benford's Law to it this could be as much as 30.1% or as little as 4.6% of the universe. it just depends on how many Quasar groups of that size they find.

I should also note that the article says the limit was derived from a computer model. We all know computer models are bastions of accuracy don't we?

[I think so I am?]

Re: crowded

Maybe missed that space can expand faster than the speed of light?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: crowded

"There's something out there that's nearly 30% the width of the universe?"

To have a width you need an edge. What there is at the edge of the universe, and what's outside it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"to have width you need an edge..."

Not true.

Drop a dimension and imagine the universe is the surface of a balloon. It can expand (meaning the surface becomes larger) and can be said to have a 'width' - i.e. the circumference of the balloon. It does not follow that the surface of the ballon must have an 'edge'. Not saying this is an accurate representation, just demonstrating the false initail assumption, and hence the moot question that followed it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

"Drop a dimension and imagine the universe is the surface of a balloon"

Alright, you've got me on that one. But, wilfully taking your analogy as factual, now the question from Dullard Towers metamorphasises (or som't like that) into an equally profound couple of questions: What's inside the balloon? And is the stuff outside the balloon the same or different to the stuff on the inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

...and what happens when the knot at the end comes undone and the universe flies around the room making a 'pbltltttbhbbbttttt!' sound?

[pixl97]

Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

>...and what happens when the knot at the end comes undone and the universe flies around the room making a 'pbltltttbhbbbttttt!' sound?

Quite possibly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe#Vacuum_metastability_event

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

[pixl97]

Re: crowded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

'The region visible from Earth (the observable Universe) is a sphere with a radius of about 47 billion light years,['

Perhaps when talking about the size of the universe, one should say 'observable universe', because the unobservable universe is much bigger, possible infinite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoving_distance

Comoving distance makes trying to figure out where something would be now interesting, since 'the universe' is expanding equally (apparently) in all directions.

[jonfr]

Quasar and a black hole

Quasar and a black hole are not the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Both have strong gravity so getting close is not recommend. Along with deadly radiation and other such things.

While I do not know about the rest of what is explained in this news article (universe uniformity). This quasar structure is proving some ideas about the universe are wrong and needs to be re-evaluated and changed.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Quasar and a black hole

Well, the assumption is that a Quasar is powered by a black hole. So there.

[envmod]

it's got to hold at least

4 London Buses. At least....maybe even 5.

[Rob Moss]

London buses

So this quasar cluster is 4.5 x 10^24 London buses across? That's quite big. Four and a half yottabuses. Anything much bigger and we'll need a new SI prefix.

[Grease Monkey]

Re: London buses

Nah, it's too big for buses. Too big for Nelson's Columns and Waless too.

[The Original Cactus]

Another dumb question from a layman

In what ways might a large structure such as, oh lets say a four billion light-year wide group of quasars, look different to another observer?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Another dumb question from a layman

A simple guess s that there would seem to be a lot more mass (several percent of the observable mass) in the direction of the cluster. It's like waking up in your home and finding all the furniture stacked against the eastern wall. Something is going ON here. Maybe we are in a Spielberg horror movie.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the length of an infinite number of buses all travelling at the speed of light.

[Stratman]

Travelling at the speed of tectonic drift would be an improvement......

[Moonshine]

...and how many times the size of Wales?

Please can we have all future measurements in "Wales", please. Use of the imperial "bus" measure is non-standard and frankly insulting to anyone under the age of 40. I was a child of the 70s and by then the "wales" was already established in geography classes when measuring rainforests. Anyone knows these days that 1 hectare = 5 nanoWales.

[Stratman]

Is it possible...

.... that the universe is not old enough to be homogeneous? That it's lumpy because it's still sorting itself out?

Give it another squillion years and it'll be fine.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Is it possible...

"The things I tell you will not be wrong"

For those haven't seen it yet: Large-Scale Simulation, a bit old now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Is it possible...

But the ( current ) standard model of the universe has the elephant-in-the-room assumption that everything we currently see flying apart was ejected from some implausibly dense signularity, without accounting for how that singularity existed.

It is perfectly possible that the universe if far larger and far older than we can currently determine, and the singularity that exploded as "The Big Bang" was formed from the gravitational collapse of simply a section of cosmos that eventually reached an explosive instability.

[Terry 6]

@ROB

We'll certainly need a bigger depot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I make it 25,167,320,000,000,000,000 London Buses

[Forget It]

what's the betting all those buses come along at once . . .

[WalterAlter]

Halton Arp Anyone?

Halton Arp, Edwin Hubbel's chief assistant and at one time considered one of the top 10 astronomer in the world, comes to a different conclusion about quasars and intrinsic red shift. He has a web site that is only a mouse click away. Amazon has his books which are also similarly aligned to the mouse click metric. Start with his "Seeing Red" then get back to me about all this Black Hole crap.

"Yes, angel, science can be just as stupid as any politician, economist or cleric"

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Halton Arp Anyone?

Arp is ancient history now. Pretty much shot down in flames by advances in observational capabilities. File under "ideas that didn't survive the test of time".

NEXT!

[WalterAlter]

Re: Halton Arp Anyone?

>>Arp is ancient history now. Pretty much shot down in flames by advances in observational capabilities. File under "ideas that didn't survive the test of time".

Shriek, shriek, shriek. Anything but read the book, eh?

[gromm]

Buses.

I had to laugh at your bus comparison. It's pretty standard for regular news outlets to measure sizes, distances, and weights in "human" terms, even if the number of buses, elephants, or football pitches required gets stupidly large.

And then there's astronomical measurements. You might as well just toss any human measurement out the window, because they're all stupidly big. As one astronomer pointed out, if you were to scale down the galaxy to where a star is the size of a grain of sand, you could scatter three grains of sand randomly about in a football stadium and that space would be more densely populated with "stars" than our neck of the galaxy is.