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This Great Ring structure is 1.3 billion light-years across and is about 15 times the size of the Moon. (Photo: Stellarium)
JAKARTA – Scientists from the University of Central Lancashire discovered a huge ring-shaped structure in space. This phenomenon was later called the “Great Ring”.
The Great Ring structure is 1.3 billion light-years across and appears to be about 15 times larger than the Moon in the night sky when viewed from Earth. Astronomers use the term “Great Ring” because this structure is made up of galaxies and galaxy clusters. This structure is so large that it challenges the understanding of the universe.
These results were revealed at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in New Orleans. The BBC reported on Friday (December 1, 2024) that the Great Ring cannot be seen with the naked eye because it is very far away, and identified all the galaxies that form a larger structure. The identification process also requires a lot of time and computing power.
Large structures like these have never been discovered before, according to one of the guiding principles of astronomy, the so-called cosmological principle. This finding also confirms that all matter is evenly distributed throughout the universe.
Although stars, planets and galaxies are large clumps of matter, given the size of the universe, the theory suggests that much larger clumps of matter should not have formed.
“This is the seventh major structure discovered in the universe that challenges the idea that the cosmos is smooth on the largest scale. If this structure is real, then it really is food for thought for cosmologists and accepted ideas about how the universe has evolved over time,” said the deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr. Robert Massey.
The Great Ring indicates that other, as yet undiscovered, factors play a role in cosmological principles. The Great Ring was first identified by Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Lopez also discovered the Giant Arch – a structure spanning 3.3 billion light-years Space .
“It seems really unreal to me because I made this discovery by accident. But this is a big deal. “Both structures are extremely large and not easily explained with our current understanding of the universe,” Lopez said.
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