back to article Good news: Largest, most ancient known galaxy supercluster is spotted. Bad news: It's collapsing on itself

An international team of astronomers have stumbled upon the largest and oldest galaxy supercluster found to date, measuring more than four quadrillion solar masses. The formation, dubbed Hyperion, is a giant complex blob of several filaments of galaxies and dark matter. It is thought to have come into being about two billion …

  1. ThatOne Silver badge
    Happy

    Symmetry

    And right now, somebody over there is probably looking at the old light of what our own supercluster looked like "back then", and is wondering what our neighborhood might look like nowadays...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Symmetry

      I wonder if they call our supercluster "Endymion"?

    2. Mips

      Re: Symmetry

      Yeh. But this is really old news. It's nothing like that now.

      Whoops. There goes the neighbourhood again.

  2. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Space

    Yeah, Hyperion is progressing slowly but you can fast-forward 11 billion years by moving your chair closer to the show.

  3. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    The conveniently imagined material dubbed "Dark Matter" will have set it spinning by now.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      It's no more "conveniently imagined"

      than the 'conveniently imagined' Jack the Ripper.

      1. Rol

        Re: It's no more "conveniently imagined"

        Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unknown assailant, which only works if you are sure the victims didn't mutilate themselves with surgical precision.

        Dark matter similarly only works as a stop gap phrase if people would stop insisting it acts from within a galaxy. If dark matter could mean weird matter within a galaxy or something like antimatter acting externally, then the phrase wouldn't be so loaded with potential misdirection.

  4. jake Silver badge

    Spotted?

    I was hoping for a nice, fetching tartan!

    1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge

      Re: Spotted?

      Spots are just a sign of puberty. Happens often in young superclusters.

    2. Kane
      Joke

      Re: Spotted?

      "I was hoping for a nice, fetching tartan!"

      Dead Men Dying Galactic Superclusters Don't Wear Plaid.

  5. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Alien

    We have a problem

    Yet another article about something that should not have existed so close to the Bigge Bange. Maybe there's a fundamental flaw with that theory. But ja, I'm no scientist.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: We have a problem

      It's not a matter of "should" or "should not" ... it's a matter of "does" or "does not". Clearly it does. Now to figure out why.

      Science Ain't it grand?

    2. Jtom

      Re: We have a problem

      Had a professor who explained to us an alternative theory that would solve some of the distribution conundrums associated with the Big Bang Theory. The concept was that there were many small singularities of dense matter. One of them exploded (‘banged’), and the resultant shock wave started a chain reaction of other singularities ‘banging’.

      It was called the Gang Bang Theory....

  6. 45RPM Silver badge

    Is collapsing? Collapsed it has, I would say? Mmm?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Go back to your Galaxy, Yoda!

  7. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Fascinating stuff

    I am currently involved in developing new algorithms for faint-object detection in the EU-funded SUNDIAL project, and it is fascinating to see how rapid developments in instrumentation and software is allowing measurements and discoveries to be made that we could only dream of not so long ago. Often the new discoveries throw up more questions rather than they answer, which is of course how science progresses.

    1. 0laf
      Pint

      Re: Fascinating stuff

      A liquid salute to you sir for working on such mind boggling boffinry

    2. M. Poolman

      Re: Fascinating stuff

      Sad to say it, but this schemes funding this sort multidisciplinary, multinational project(EU2020/Marie Curie) will shortly no longer be available to UK boffins, and there is no sign the government is planning (or even able) to provide a substitute.

  8. farranut

    Handsome Jack approves

    I hear they make the most accurate guns ;)

    1. A Nother Handle
      Mushroom

      Re: Handsome Jack approves

      Bah! Who needs accuracy? Mr Torgue (and I) say MOOOORE EXPLOOOOOSIIIIOOONNSSS!!!

  9. harmjschoonhoven
  10. Flashfox

    Hmm ... 2 billion years after the Big Bang ... that means that it's an "old" image that is ~11.8 billion years old. As someone else mentioned, what does that super cluster look like "today"? Does it even exist anymore? Heck 11 billion years ago our sun didn't even exist.

    That is unless the flow of time is not constant ... but that's for another thread :-)

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