Good news: Largest, most ancient known galaxy supercluster is spotted. Bad news: It's collapsing on itself

An international team of astronomers have stumbled upon the largest and oldest galaxy supercluster found to date, measuring more than four quadrillion solar masses. The formation, dubbed Hyperion, is a giant complex blob of several filaments of galaxies and dark matter. It is thought to have come into being about two billion …

[ThatOne]

Symmetry

And right now, somebody over there is probably looking at the old light of what our own supercluster looked like "back then", and is wondering what our neighborhood might look like nowadays...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Symmetry

I wonder if they call our supercluster "Endymion"?

[Mips]

Re: Symmetry

Yeh. But this is really old news. It's nothing like that now.

Whoops. There goes the neighbourhood again.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Space

Yeah, Hyperion is progressing slowly but you can fast-forward 11 billion years by moving your chair closer to the show.

[89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921]

The conveniently imagined material dubbed "Dark Matter" will have set it spinning by now.

[Francis Boyle]

It's no more "conveniently imagined"

than the 'conveniently imagined' Jack the Ripper.

[Rol]

Re: It's no more "conveniently imagined"

Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unknown assailant, which only works if you are sure the victims didn't mutilate themselves with surgical precision.

Dark matter similarly only works as a stop gap phrase if people would stop insisting it acts from within a galaxy. If dark matter could mean weird matter within a galaxy or something like antimatter acting externally, then the phrase wouldn't be so loaded with potential misdirection.

[jake]

Spotted?

I was hoping for a nice, fetching tartan!

[Sceptic Tank]

Re: Spotted?

Spots are just a sign of puberty. Happens often in young superclusters.

[Kane]

Re: Spotted?

"I was hoping for a nice, fetching tartan!"

Dead Men Dying Galactic Superclusters Don't Wear Plaid.

[Sceptic Tank]

We have a problem

Yet another article about something that should not have existed so close to the Bigge Bange. Maybe there's a fundamental flaw with that theory. But ja, I'm no scientist.

[jake]

Re: We have a problem

It's not a matter of "should" or "should not" ... it's a matter of "does" or "does not". Clearly it does. Now to figure out why.

Science Ain't it grand?

[Jtom]

Re: We have a problem

Had a professor who explained to us an alternative theory that would solve some of the distribution conundrums associated with the Big Bang Theory. The concept was that there were many small singularities of dense matter. One of them exploded (‘banged’), and the resultant shock wave started a chain reaction of other singularities ‘banging’.

It was called the Gang Bang Theory....

[45RPM]

Is collapsing? Collapsed it has, I would say? Mmm?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Go back to your Galaxy, Yoda!

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Fascinating stuff

I am currently involved in developing new algorithms for faint-object detection in the EU-funded SUNDIAL project, and it is fascinating to see how rapid developments in instrumentation and software is allowing measurements and discoveries to be made that we could only dream of not so long ago. Often the new discoveries throw up more questions rather than they answer, which is of course how science progresses.

[0laf]

Re: Fascinating stuff

A liquid salute to you sir for working on such mind boggling boffinry

[M. Poolman]

Re: Fascinating stuff

Sad to say it, but this schemes funding this sort multidisciplinary, multinational project(EU2020/Marie Curie) will shortly no longer be available to UK boffins, and there is no sign the government is planning (or even able) to provide a substitute.

[farranut]

Handsome Jack approves

I hear they make the most accurate guns ;)

[A Nother Handle]

Re: Handsome Jack approves

Bah! Who needs accuracy? Mr Torgue (and I) say MOOOORE EXPLOOOOOSIIIIOOONNSSS!!!

[harmjschoonhoven]

What the fuss is all about

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.06073 (abstract)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.06073 (PDF)

[Flashfox]

Hmm ... 2 billion years after the Big Bang ... that means that it's an "old" image that is ~11.8 billion years old. As someone else mentioned, what does that super cluster look like "today"? Does it even exist anymore? Heck 11 billion years ago our sun didn't even exist.

That is unless the flow of time is not constant ... but that's for another thread :-)