Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

List of largest cosmic structures

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List of largest cosmic structures

This is a list of the largest cosmic structures so far discovered. The unit of measurement used is the light year (distance traveled by light in one Julian year; approximately 9.46 trillion kilometres).

This list includes superclusters, galaxy filaments and large quasar groups (LQG's). The list characterizes each structure based on its longest dimension.

Note that this list refers only to coupling of matter with defined limits, and not the coupling of matter in general (as per example the cosmic microwave background, which fills the entire universe). All structures in this list are defined as to whether their presiding limits have been identified.

There are some speculations about this list:

  • The Zone of Avoidance, or the part of the sky in which the Milky Way is occupied, blocks out light to several structures, making its limits imprecisely identified.
  • Some structures are far too distant to be seen even with the most powerful telescopes. Some factors are included to explain the structure (like gravitational lensing and redshift data).
  • Some structures have no defined limits, or endpoints. All structures are believed to be part of the cosmic web, which is a conclusive idea. Most structures are overlapped by nearby galaxies, creating a problem of how to carefully define the structure's limit.

    • List of largest voids

    Voids are immense spaces between galaxy filaments and other large-scale structures. Technically they are not structures. They are vast spaces which contain very few, or no galaxies. They are theorized to be caused by quantum fluctuations during the early formation of the universe.

    A list of the largest voids so far discovered is below. Each is ranked according to its longest dimension.

    References

    List of largest cosmic structures Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA