Astronomers have announced the discovery of one of the largest rotating structures in the universe, a huge thread of galaxies, gas and dark matter rotating around its central axis, which may allow understanding of how the Milky Way formed..
Using some of the most powerful telescopes in the world, the research team observed more than 280 galaxies arranged in a single line extending 50 million light-years across the universe. Despite its enormous length, this filament is only 163,000 light-years across, making it “extremely thin” for its size..
Professor Matt Jarvis, co-author from the Universities of Oxford and the University of the Western Cape, said: “The narrowness of this thread can be likened to dough being rolled out to form a thin strip only a few millimeters thick. But it is enormous on a cosmic scale, with a radius equal to about 10 billion times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.”“.
Observations showed that the galaxies move on either side of the filament’s axis in opposite directions, indicating a rotation of the entire structure. Even more exciting is that many of the galaxies themselves rotate in the same direction as the filament, which reinforces the idea that large cosmic structures can influence the rotation of individual galaxies..
Cosmic threads are among the largest structures in the universe, and extend within a vast network known as the cosmic web. They act as cosmic roads linking large galactic clusters, and allow gas and galaxies to move between them..
