One of the fundamental principles of cosmology is that at a large enough scale, things “even out”—the universe appears to be uniform, no matter where you look. In other words, “entropy” rules the universe—everything eventually winds down and evens out.
Two years ago, researchers discovered a colossal arc of galaxies spanning 3.3 billion light years and situated 9.2 billion light years away. Now, the same team has discovered another structure, a ring of galaxies stretching 1.3 billion light years in diameter, and which is also 9.2 billion light years away; the two structures are 12° apart in the sky. If they could be seen with the naked eye, they would appear to be 15 times larger than the Moon.
They have been named the highly technical terms of the “Giant Arc” and the “Big Ring.”
The discoverer of both is Alexia Lopez, a graduate researcher from the University of Central Lancashire, and she presented her findings at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
She explained that these discoveries are challenging everything that we’ve presumed how the universe operates.
