A Structure In Deep Space Is So Giant It's Challenging Standard Physics

Scientists have discovered a structure in the distant universe so immense that it is actually challenging our understanding of the universe. 

Known as the Giant Arc, this crescent-shaped stream of galaxies stretches across 3.3 billion light years, making it about one-fifteenth the radius of the entire observable universe. 

The unusual discovery was recently announced by Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire who detected the Giant Arc, at the 238th virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. “It’s so big that it’s hard to explain with our current theories,” Lopez said during her presentation on June 7.

Lopez first spotted the structure, which is located 9.2 billion light years from Earth in the constellation Bootes, in observations captured by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, based in New Mexico. At the time, she was researching a technique called the magnesium II (MgII) method that probes the spectral fingerprints of ionized magnesium in space to detect structures that might otherwise remain hidden.

“The Giant Arc was a serendipitous discovery,” Lopez said in an email. “I was working on understanding the MgII method and how well it worked, when this one particular piece of sky I was testing happened to show the first hints towards something exciting. That’s when I started to look more into this bit of sky and slowly, but surely, the Giant Arc was revealed.”

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