Meet Hyperion: Colossal Supercluster in the Early Universe

[Judi Lynn]

By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Contributor | October 17, 2018 03:37pm ET

Scientists recently uncovered the largest known structure of the ancient universe.

It's an object called a supercluster, which is not as foreign as it may sound. We reside in a supercluster, too. If space seems like a lonely place on dim nights, just remember that Earth is in the midst of plentiful galactic company. The sun's home, the Milky Way, is one galaxy out of many in its cosmic neighborhood. And the Milky Way galaxy is a member of a gathering of nearby galaxies called the Virgo supercluster, which is part of a larger supercluster called Laniakea (which translates to "immeasurable heavens" in Hawaiian).

These structures are typically found when scientists look at lower redshifts. In general, redshifts are a measure of how much an object's light has been stretched out as the object moves away from us. Astronomers use redshift to evaluate how long ago light left its source; because the universe is expanding, the less redshift that light shows, the later in the universe's history the light originally left its source.

Structures spotted at lower redshifts are cosmic contemporaries. But at higher redshifts, an object is determined to be much older.

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