Galaxy filament

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The universe within 1 billion light-years (307 Mpc) of Earth, showing local superclusters forming filaments and voids.
The universe within 1 billion light-years (307 Mpc) of Earth, showing local superclusters forming filaments and voids.

In physical cosmology, filaments are the largest known structures in the universe, thread-like structures with a typical length of 50 to 80 h-1 megaparsecs that form the boundaries between large voids in the universe.[1] Filaments consist of gravitationally-bound galaxies; parts where a large number of galaxies are very close to each other are called superclusters.

In 2006, scientists announced the discovery of three filaments aligned to form the largest structure known to humankind, composed of densely-packed galaxies and enormous blobs of gas known as Lyman alpha blobs.[2]

[edit] Examples

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bharadwaj, Somnath; Bhavsar, Suketu; Sheth, Jatush V. The Size of the Longest Filaments in the Universe. Astrophys.J. 606 (2004) 25-31
  2. ^ Than, Ker. "Scientists: Cosmic blob biggest thing in universe", SPACE.com, July 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-03-11. 

[edit] External links

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