In 2021, British doctoral student Alexia Lopez from the University of Central Lancashire made a remarkable discovery while analyzing the light from distant quasars, the active nuclei of galaxies. She identified a massive, nearly symmetrical galaxy arc located 9.3 billion light-years away in the constellation of the Bear Guardian (or Bootes). This structure spans "only" 1/15 of the radius of the observable universe and, if visible from Earth, would be the size of 35 full moons in the sky. Stretching over 3.3 billion light-years, the structure, known as the Giant Arc, challenges some fundamental assumptions about the universe.
According to the Standard Model of cosmology, the theory underpinning our understanding of the universe, and the cosmological principle established in 1933, matter should be more or less evenly distributed in space. Therefore, when astronomers observe the universe on very large scales, there should be no noticeable irregularities.
However, the Giant Arc, and a newly discovered cosmic megastructure called the "Great Ring," challenge these theories. The Great Ring, a ring of distant galaxies 1.3 billion light-years across, was presented by Lopez at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. Both structures force experts to reconsider previous theories about the origins of the universe.
The Great Ring was identified through the analysis of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a catalog of distant quasars. These exceptionally bright objects act like distant lamps, illuminating intervening galaxies with their light, making them visible from billions of light-years away.
While the exact origin of these structures remains mysterious, potential explanations include acoustic waves in the early universe known as baryonic acoustic oscillations, spherical shells resulting from the current arrangement of galaxies, or the presence of cosmic strings—hypothetical defects in the fabric of the universe causing matter to clump along large-scale faults.
Lopez's discoveries challenge existing notions, prompting a reevaluation of the standard model of cosmology. Whether the current model needs refinement or an entirely new cosmological theorem is required remains an open question.
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