Scientists Discover Largest Known Structure

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Feb 25, 2013 | 01:33 PM

d1rtyc4r

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Scientists Discover Largest Known Structure

http://blogs.voanews.com/science-wor...nown-structure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huge-LQG

This defies the Cosmological Principle that nothing can exist more than 1.2billion light years large in our Universe. The Huge-LQG is over 4billion light years! I think it's a matter of time before we discover something beyond 14billion light years away (James Webb telescope).

While I'm blowing your mind, let me introduce you to the largest know galaxy: IC1101.

The milky way is decent sized at ~100k light years in diameter. Andromeda - the nearest spiral galaxy - is a rather large galaxy at ~220k light years in diameter and contains twice as many stars as the milky way (about a trillion). IC1101 is 6 million light years in diameter! If it were put in the Milky way's place, it would consume Andromeda as well!

Think about it like this:

Code:

. Milky Way
        . Andromeda (2m light years away)

*********************** IC1101

Still not enough? Well how about vy canis majoris - the largest known star. If it replaced the sun in the center of our galaxy, it would swallow the inner planets and even Jupiter!

Code:

o Sun
 ... Inner planets
            . Jupiter
                          . Saturn

******************** VY Canis Majoris

*edit* Apparently VY Canis Majoris has been dethroned, NML Cygni is the largest known star. Wow. But still fits to the scale above, doesn't consume Saturn.

Feb 27, 2013 | 11:26 AM

S2020

Joined: Mar 2002

Posts: 112,963

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From: Doh!!

thanks for sharing
just for context, check out this link and see the (previously) largest object in the universe. it boggles the mind.
http://htwins.net/scale2/