Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a large-scale structure, consisting of at least 20 closely spaced galaxies from the early universe.
This huge structure is nicknamed the “Cosmic Vine,” and takes the shape of an arc. Its size is estimated at more than 13 million light-years and its width is about 650,000 light-years, noting that the width of our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years.
The massive, dense structures of galaxies are seen as the ancestors of galaxy clusters, the most massive gravitationally bound systems in the universe. Therefore, discovering new structures of this type and studying them in detail is fundamental to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.
Discovery of a huge cosmic structure
The large structure, discovered by a group of astronomers led by Xuwen Jin of the Technical University of Denmark, was detected at a redshift of 3.44, in the small region between the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Major, called the “Extended Growth Strip” EGS, which was observed using the James Webb Telescope. The observations were supplemented with data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
This means that the light from the objects traveled between 11 billion and 12 billion years – or throughout most of the universe’s 13.8 billion years – before reaching the lens of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Observations show that the “cosmic vine” is a very long and large structure, measuring about 13.04 in length and 0.65 million light-years in width. Therefore, this structure is much larger than other compact galaxy clusters and protoclusters at redshifts higher than 3.0.
Astronomers found that the “cosmic vine” consists of at least 20 massive galaxies and six hyperdense galaxies, which contributes to a total mass of 260 billion solar masses, noting that the two most massive galaxies in the structure are Galaxy A and Galaxy E, which are galaxies. Quiet, with star formation rates of less than 0.5 solar masses per year, they display bulge-dominated shapes, i.e. a tightly packed group of stars within a larger star formation.
Scientists stated that the cosmic vine is “much larger” than other galaxy clusters that were observed very early in the history of the universe, and it appears that the cosmic vine is on its way to becoming a galaxy cluster. These are the most massive structures in the universe, linked together by gravity, and their masses usually range from hundreds of billions to quadrillion times the mass of Earth’s sun, according to astronomers and researchers.
Scientists suggest further research into quiet cluster galaxies with high redshifts, which could reveal insight into how the most massive structures in the universe form.
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