The discovery of the Great Ring in deep space has caused a wrinkle for cosmologists
The Arch and Ring in the northern sky. Credit: Stellarium.
There’s a lot to discover in deep space. And sometimes reason remains above that. Such is the case of the newly detected Big Ring, which had its premiere at the recent 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. The Great Ring is a structure we observe about 9.2 billion light-years away. The diameter of this wondrous structure is about 1.3 billion light-years and its circumference about 4 billion light-years. It is so large that in the sky its diameter corresponds to about 15 full moons stacked side by side.
Alexia Lopez. Credit: A. Lopez.
The Great Ring is currently the second largest known structure in the universe. At the same time, it is remarkable that the same researcher, Alexia Lopez from the British University of Central Lancashire, is behind the discovery of the very largest structure, the Giant Arc (Giant Arc) from 2021. Even more remarkable is that the Gigantic Arc, the size of which is about 3.3 billion light years, is observed not only at the same distance from us, but in practically the same part of the sky. “Weird” is an understatement. We actually have them over our heads every night. Both the Arch and the Ring are located near the Big Dipper.
Logo. Kredit: University of Central Lancashire.
Both mentioned structures form a large number of distant galaxies. As Lopez wryly points out, none of the structures she discovered can be simply explained by mainstream cosmology. Not to mention that they violate the classical cosmological principle that the universe should be homogeneous on the largest scales.
The researcher is convinced that their distance, size and shape tell us something important about the universe. But it is not clear what it should be. One possibility is a connection to baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) that occurred in the early universe. However, detailed analyzes rather exclude this possibility. The large ring is too large and not circular enough to be a BAO.
Other options are even more exotic. Roger Penrose’s cyclical cosmology (CCC, Conformal cyclic cosmology), which includes the endless cycle of birth and death of the universe. Structures like the Great Ring could be a trace of a previous universe. There is also talk of cosmic strings, wondrous defects in the universe on huge scales, which could be responsible for something like this. Hopefully we will learn more about this mystery of mammoth proportions in time.
Video: A Big Ring on The Sky: AAS 243rd Press conference. Alexia M. Lopez 2nd Discovery
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University of Central Lancashire 11. 1. 2024.
2024-01-19 15:15:56
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