{"id":297834,"date":"2025-12-04T02:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T02:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297834\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T02:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T02:39:09","slug":"giant-spinning-strand-of-galaxies-discovered-in-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297834\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant spinning strand of galaxies discovered in deep space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moons, planets, stars and even galaxies rotate, but they are all dwarfed in scale by the most gigantic spinning structure ever detected in the universe, astonishing astronomers.<\/p>\n

Measuring 50 million light years from end to end and containing more than 280 galaxies, a \u201ccosmic filament\u201d \u2014 a strand of galaxies that forms part of the universe\u2019s fundamental web-like structure \u2014 is spinning at almost 250,000mph, a study has found.<\/p>\n

The filament occupies a broadly \u00adcylindrical patch of space that is \u00adspinning along its central axis.<\/p>\n

Galaxies within the strand are also spinning, causing astronomers to speculate that these structures may derive their motion from the rotation of the giant galactic neighbourhoods they sit within. The same rolling effect may also help the galaxies to form.<\/p>\n

Dr Lyla Jung, from the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, \u00adco-lead author of the study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: \u201cWhat makes this structure exceptional is not just its size but the combination of spin alignment and rotational \u00admotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can liken it to a \u2018teacups\u2019 ride at a theme park. Each galaxy is like a \u00adspinning teacup, but the whole \u00adplatform \u2014 the cosmic filament \u2014 is rotating too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis dual motion gives us rare insight into how galaxies gain their spin from the larger structures they live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery was made using South Africa\u2019s MeerKAT radio telescope, an array of 64 interlinked dishes.<\/p>\n

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Galaxies are generally found grouped in \u00adclusters and, in turn, superclusters. Zooming out even further \u00adreveals the superclusters themselves are arranged into web-like filaments that stretch across the universe to form a colossal network.<\/p>\n

Researchers said: \u201cCosmic filaments are the largest known structures in the universe \u2014 vast, thread-like formations of galaxies and dark matter that form a cosmic scaffolding. They also act as \u2018highways\u2019 along which matter and momentum flow into galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 50 million light year length of the filament is difficult to equate with anything recognisable as its scale is so vast.<\/p>\n

One light year is about 5.7 trillion miles, or some 2,000 times the distance between the sun and Neptune, our \u00adsolar system\u2019s outermost planet. The length of the filament is therefore about 100 billion times the distance from the sun to Neptune.<\/p>\n

The disc of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years from edge to edge, making the length of the filament\u00ad 500 times the width of our galaxy.<\/p>\n

The Apollo 11 mission that took Neil \u00adArmstrong to the moon reached a top speed of about 25,000mph. At that rate it would take 1.3 trillion years to travel the filament\u2019s full length.<\/p>\n

It is thought that the newly-detected cosmic filament is relatively young. The spinning motion of such filaments may help to \u201cfunnel\u201d matter into juvenile, growing galaxies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause atomic hydrogen is more easily disturbed by motion, its presence helps reveal how gas is funnelled through filaments into [young] \u00adgalaxies, \u00adoffering clues about how angular \u00admomentum flows through the cosmic web to influence galaxy \u00admorphology, spin and star formation,\u201d researchers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moons, planets, stars and even galaxies rotate, but they are all dwarfed in scale by the most gigantic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-297834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}