An immense cosmic web is intertwined with space, on which galaxies are glued like fireflies. Detailed analyzes of the motion of a large number of galaxies have revealed that the fibers of this cobweb rotate majestically around the longitudinal axis. The physical mechanism that twists on them on a scale of many millions of light-years is not yet known.
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Cosmic spider web thread. Credit: A. Khalatyan / J. Fohlmeister, AIP.
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When we look at the universe, practically everything in it revolves around its axis. Asteroids rotate, planets seem to rot, and galaxies rotate like ghostly carousels full of stars. But how far can it go? Astronomers from the German Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) and their collaborators offered a remarkable answer.
Peng Wang | Credit: AIP.
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Peng Wang and his team discovered that the strands of the cosmic web, the largest known structures that make up the universe, probably revolve around their longitudinal axis. These filaments, which are hundreds of millions of light-years long, form an intergalactic mass with dark matter on which clusters of galaxies are strung like beads. Fibers revolve around cosmic voids and connect clusters of galaxies.
Despite their unimaginable size, it is not at all easy to find, let alone observe, these fibers. They are not very clear and their mass is very thin. Their research is often very demanding. In this case, the researchers analyzed in detail the properties of a huge number of galaxies and by comparing many known fibers of the cosmic web. They mainly used galaxy motion data from Sloan’s majestic sky survey.
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Logo. Credit: AIP.
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In the end, they extracted key information from a large amount of data. The cobwebs rotate. Wang’s team found out by tracking the motion of galaxies distributed in a cosmic web. It turned out that galaxies on one side along the axis of rotation are moving towards us, while galaxies on the other side are moving away from us. The cosmic web fibers, which contain the most galaxies, rotate the fastest.
According to Noam Libeskind of the research team, this is extremely fascinating. Cosmic fibers, dotted with galaxies like grains of dust, rotate for hitherto unknown reasons. We have never seen rotation on such a huge scale. Which also suggests that some hitherto unknown physical mechanism is twisting with the fibers of the cosmic cobweb. All that remains is to discover him.
Video: “From chaos to cosmos” – guest lecture by Noam Libeskind
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Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam June 14, 2021.
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