Largest structure in universe found — and it's mind-boggling

[ButterflyBlood]

Source: MSNBC

Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe, a clump of active galactic cores that stretches 4 billion light-years from end to end.

The structure is a large quasar group (LQG), a collection of extremely luminous galactic nuclei powered by supermassive central black holes. This particular group is so large that it challenges modern cosmological theory, researchers said.

"While it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it is the largest structure ever seen in the entire universe," lead author Roger Clowes, of the University of Central Lancashire in England, said in a statement. "This is hugely exciting, not least because it runs counter to our current understanding of the scale of the universe."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50434185/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Truly amazing.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. 4 billion X 5.878 trillion...boggles the mind doesn't it? n/t

[olddad56]

2. I thought it would be bigger.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

3. LMAO...

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. In Texas it IS.

[KittyWampus]

10. That's what SHE said!

[olddad56]

23. who? your mom

[KittyWampus]

63. My Mom's dead so size doesn't matter to her anymore.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. Some people are NEVER satisfied!

[Plucketeer]

18. Bigger even

than the FAILINGS of our current GOP-controlled congrewss???

[olddad56]

22. no, of course not that big. The only thing bigger than that is the failings of Dubya.

[tclambert]

56. It's bigger on the inside.

[valerief]

6. Sounds like a Congressional budget for WARS. nt

[Sekhmets Daughter]

7. Oh lord...wouldn't the neocons love just love it?

[olddad56]

24. really, they could really terrorize the world then.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

40. They pretty much do that already...

only the Chinese appear to be unafraid.

[sir pball]

15. As Douglas Adams said once..

"Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity—distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless."

So no. It's not mindboggling to me at all..it's a mental divide by zero. Undefined.

[intaglio]

34. He also said

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

39. Don't incomprehensible and undefined pretty much mean mindboggling? n/t

[sir pball]

66. Not to me..

My brain has to be able to wrap itself around something to be boggled...this goes beyond that, my mind is just giving it a blank look and going "oh, that's nice.."

[cliffordu]

4. Thanks for making me feel smaller than I already do.....

[RKP5637]

51. LOL! We ain't even a grain of sand on the beech anymore.

[sky imager]

8. This kind of sums up our present understanding....

"We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it."
- Timothy Ferris

[dlwickham]

9. Newt Gingrich's ego is bigger

[olddad56]

25. But Rush's is bigger than Newt's.

[flamingdem]

12. Dats a bigga meataball! n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

52. ....

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeheeee!

[TheMadMonk]

60. If you like that you'll love this.

Emma come first and then I a come next. Then a come two asses and I a come again. Then a come two more asses and I a come again. Then a pee pee and I a come one last time.

Just WTF am I doing?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

61. you're an Italian immigrant, first generation,

Spelling Mississippi. Of course!

[NBachers]

13. Thank you, thank you that the smart people are still able to do their incredible work

And may they triumph over regressive republican ignorance and superstition.

[GliderGuider]

14. How are we ever going to get it into the van???

I'm waiting for them to tell us it's actually older than the universe itself.

[olddad56]

26. compress it, silly

[Wednesdays]

36. That, or fold it in half.

[sadbear]

16. All that endless energy in our universe...

and we're stuck with ancient sunlight and splitting atoms.

[Flatulo]

17. Ha, I wish. Solar is what, 2% of our energy production?

[sadbear]

42. Oil and coal = ancient sunlight

[Flatulo]

43. <Palmslap> LOL, thanks. Missed that.

[Coyotl]

19. Thank you. I needed my mind boggled a bit.

[SteveG]

20. The universe is more bizarre and strange than we can imagine (nt)

nt

[Jack Sprat]

21. Is the article suggesting

that many black holes have united in some way to form a gigantic black hole? I have often wondered what comes out the other side of the black holes. All that energy and mass is sucked into the singularity, but what if anything comes out the other end? Science is real interesting. Wish that we could understand it all.

[olddad56]

27. white light comes out the other side. I fell into one once, I know.

[Wednesdays]

37. It sucks when that happens.

[FleetwoodMac]

29. A black hole, according to Jack O'Neill

[olddad56]

28. I saw this structure once on acid. It looked even bigger than a measley 4 billion light years.

[Wednesdays]

38. How do you get a structure like that to take acid?

And I'd think it would take somewhat more than a few ounces for it to have any effect .

[olddad56]

45. I just tossed it in it's big black hole.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. My mom was a hoarder. Her house was a black hole. Nothing came out of it.

The event horizon was the city limit sign.

[tridim]

31. Strange things happen when black holes orbit each other. That illustration is super cool!

[blackspade]

32. I love astrophysics!

[Loudly]

33. How far away is it?

Once I know that, I can get a sense of how long ago it was going on.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

53. I just wanna know if I should pack a lunch.

[Permanut]

35. This is somewhere out beyond cool. n/t

[NuttyFluffers]

41. oh yeah, Azathoth, that's nothing new.

we should see if we can port the signal into radio waves, just to check out the mad pipings of forgotten outer gods who dance around Azathoth's court.

ahh, mad pipings... it's good to be the sultan.

[BadgerKid]

44. The marvels of the universe aside...

I wonder how hyped up this is in order to wrestle some more funding.

[CrispyQ]

46. Cool stuff.

Love this too:

The Scale of the Universe

http://htwins.net/scale2/

[calimary]

59. Whoa! THIS is TRIPPY!!!!

I'm loving it, too!

The Scale of the Universe

http://htwins.net/scale2/

THANK YOU for posting! Definitely one to bookmark!

[CrispyQ]

64. I think it makes great background music for when I'm working.

Usually I hate any noise when I'm working, but I like this.

Glad you liked it!

[calimary]

65. The background music just lends more to the images.

Lifts them into a kind of eerie, mysterious transcendency. Which is what we're seeing in this animated demonstration.

Magnificent and unsettling. SO MUCH "gee whiz" in there. The News Editor used to use that at the AP in L.A. upon assigning the reporter and photo guy to go cover the Consumer Electronics Show - "...get the 'gee whiz' stuff..."

Shit, sometimes the news biz was really kinda fun!

[nc4bo]

62. Wow! nm

[Gregorian]

47. It forces the thought that we cannot be the only life in the universe. It's almost impossible.

[Rozlee]

48. Yeah, but get over it. We live in the low rent district of the cosmos.

That's why none of the cool aliens ever come here. Just the anal prodders who like sticking it to good ol' boys in the red states.

[Gregorian]

49. But they don't know what they're missing! We have Starbucks!

Maybe Orly Taitz is an alien. They could be living amongst us, cloaked as Republicans.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

54. hey how can you assume they're that bad?

I always thought the aliens would have to be smarter and better. ....

They don't want to get contaminated by us, that's all.

"The Bozone Layer. Protecting the rest of the Universe from us."

[wandy]

55. Simple. Republicans are aliens banished from a saner world....

Aliens approaching earth might have been monitoring our radio and TV broadcasts for over a hundred years.
Nuclear bomb tests mixed in with I Love Lucie.
Carnage intermingled with Honey Bo Bo.
The republican National Convention featuring a crazy old man yelling at a chair.
They would want nothing to do with us.

"That sign post up ahead."
Avoid This Planet At All Costs."

[BlancheSplanchnik]

58. oh. ....yeah........

That makes sense.

[Schema Thing]

57. It just seemed bigger when I used to go there as a kid.