{"id":345363,"date":"2025-12-13T13:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T13:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345363\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T13:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T13:03:07","slug":"scientists-detect-huge-rotating-structure-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345363\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Detect Huge Rotating Structure in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers have observed enormous filaments<\/a> of galaxies tied together with dark matter \u2014 the stuff scientists believe makes up 85 percent of the total mass of the universe \u2014 stretching across unfathomably vast distances.<\/p>\n

Some of these behemoth structures have been observed to spin<\/a> in the same direction, a dazzling and mysterious cosmic dance stretching across tens of millions of light-years, and a tantalizing clue in our efforts to understand how galaxies, and eventually stars, are formed.<\/p>\n

Now, an international team of researchers led by the University of Oxford says it has spotted the largest one of these rotating structures ever identified using data from South Africa\u2019s MeerKAT radio telescope, an array of 64 linked satellite dishes.<\/p>\n

As detailed in a study published this month<\/a> in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, they observed 14 galaxies arranged in a \u201crazor-thin\u201d string that measures roughly 5.5 million light-years long and 117,000 light-years across. This structure is located inside a much larger filament that contains 280 other galaxies, reaching a length of 50 million light-years.<\/p>\n

Many of these hundreds of galaxies appear to be rotating in the same direction as the overarching filament itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the largest individual spinning structure so far detected,\u201d colead author and University of Oxford postdoctoral researcher Lyla Jung told Reuters<\/a>. \u201cStatistically, we believe there are other spinning structures, some of which could be larger. However, we have not been able to detect them directly with our current data and telescopes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery suggests these structures can influence the spin of galaxies for longer, and more strongly, than previously thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes this structure exceptional is not just its size, but the combination of spin alignment and rotational motion,\u201d Jung said in a statement<\/a> about the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can liken it to the teacups ride at a theme park,\u201d she added. \u201cEach galaxy is like a spinning teacup, but the whole platform- the cosmic filament -is rotating too. This dual motion gives us rare insight into how galaxies gain their spin from the larger structures they live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers suggest the filament is still fairly young after finding it\u2019s in a \u201cdynamically cold\u201d state. The hydrogen-gas-rich galaxies within may still be gathering fuel to spit out stars, an intriguing glimpse into the earliest stages of a galaxy\u2019s evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis filament is a fossil record of cosmic flows,\u201d said colead author and University of Cambridge postdoctoral research assistant Madalina Tudorache in the statement.<\/p>\n

The findings also detail how this gas is being swirled around inside the filament, which could inform future observation efforts using the European Space Agency\u2019s Euclid mission and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very exciting time to work in this field, as our capacity of discovering such structures is increasing with the advent of better radio and optical surveys,\u201d Tudorache told Reuters. \u201cIt will deepen our understanding of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on cosmic filaments: Scientists Detect \u201cStrange Filaments\u201d at the Heart of Our Galaxy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have observed enormous filaments of galaxies tied together with dark matter \u2014 the stuff scientists believe makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128,190093,116596],"class_list":["post-345363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-structures","tag-university-of-oxford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}