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from the got-your-biggest-thing-in-the-universe-right-here dept.
I found this story Astronomers discover the biggest thing in the Universe in gizmag:
According to a team of Hungarian-US scientists led by Prof Lajos Balazs, the largest regular formation in the Universe is a ring of nine galaxies 7 billion light years away and 5 billion light years wide. Though not visible from Earth, the newly discovered feature covers a third of our sky.
The ring was revealed by nine Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) originating from the nine galaxies. GRBs are the brightest, most energetic events in the cosmos, putting out as much energy in seconds as the Sun will in its entire lifetime. They're caused by supernovae or hypernovae – supermassive stars collapse into neutron stars or black holes in times ranging from milliseconds to a few hours. Aside from their spectacular deaths, they also help astronomers to measure the distance of other galaxies.
... [The ring] casts doubts on the Cosmological Principle. First asserted by Sir Isaac Newton and developed based on observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and the structure of the early universe in the past century, it states that at the largest scale, the Universe is uniform, so no matter where you are, it looks essentially the same.
According to the team, recent work indicates that the largest structures can't be more than 1.2 billion light years across. This is at odds with the new discovery, as the ring is about five times as big, implying a much more uneven cosmos.
Original report at Royal Astronomical Society; an abstract is available as well as the full report in HTML and as a pdf.
Any astronomers and/or cosmologists like to weigh in on this one? How earth-shaking a result is this? What would be impacted and how much?
(Score: 1, Troll) by mendax on Saturday August 22 2015, @04:25AM
You mean there is something bigger in the universe than Donald Trump's ego? Would could it have been? It couldn't have been George W. Bush's intellect? That would fit on a head of a pin.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2015, @04:41AM
There's no room on the head of pin because the angels are having a party.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 22 2015, @05:39PM
When the party stops and the angels start puking and weeping into the toilets...
... don't blink.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by mendax on Sunday August 23 2015, @01:18AM
This got modded down to troll? Geez.... people here have no sense of humor! Perhaps I should start growing a beard, let my hair grow out, and start walking on my knees to match this sentiment.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.