Longest supercluster found in Aquarius

17 Jun 2002

This week, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Toronto, Canada, astronomers Kurt Slinglend, David Batuski, and Chris Miller of the University of Maine, presented evidence for what appears to be the longest single structure yet seen in the universe, a supercluster of galaxies about one billion light-years in length. The discovery adds significantly to the emerging picture of large-scale structure in the present-day universe.The evidence also suggests that the supercluster is most certainly a remnant of the Big Bang itself and thus provides researchers insight into conditions in the early universe. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

The supercluster consists of a string of 23 clusters of galaxies running roughly along the line of sight from earth. They feature a range of red shifts corresponding to distances between 1 billion and 2 billion light-years from earth in the southern part of the constellation Aquarius. Also intriguing is a super-dense knot of seven clusters about halfway out along the filament.