The distant ancestors of modern inhabitants of planet Earth believed that it was the largest object in the universe, and the small-sized Sun and Moon revolved around it in the sky day after day. The smallest formations in space seemed to them to be stars, which were compared to tiny luminous points attached to the firmament. Centuries have passed, and man's views on the structure of the Universe have changed dramatically. So what will modern scientists answer now to the question, what is the largest space object?
Age and structure of the Universe
According to the latest scientific data, our Universe has existed for about 14 billion years, this is the period in which its age is calculated. Having begun its existence at a point of cosmic singularity, where the density of matter was incredibly high, it, constantly expanding, reached its present state. Today, it is believed that the Universe is built from only 4.9% of the ordinary and familiar matter from which all astronomical objects visible and perceived by instruments are composed.
Previously, exploring space and movement celestial bodies, ancient astronomers had the opportunity to rely only on their own observations, using only simple measuring instruments. Modern scientists, in order to understand the structure and size of various formations in the Universe, have artificial satellites, observatories, lasers and radio telescopes, the most sophisticated sensors in design. At first glance, it seems that with the help of scientific achievements it is not at all difficult to answer the question of what is the largest space object. However, this is not at all as easy as it seems.
Where is there a lot of water?
By what parameters should we judge: by size, weight or quantity? For example, the largest cloud of water in space was discovered from us at a distance that light travels in 12 billion years. The total amount of this substance in the form of vapor in this region of the Universe exceeds all the reserves of the Earth's oceans by 140 trillion times. There is 4 thousand times more water vapor there than is contained in our entire galaxy, called the Milky Way. Scientists believe that this is the oldest cluster, formed long before the times when our Earth as a planet appeared to the world from the solar nebula. This object, rightfully classified as one of the giants of the Universe, appeared almost immediately after its birth, just after a billion years or maybe a little more.
Where is the greatest mass concentrated?
Water is believed to be the oldest and most abundant element not only on planet Earth, but also in the depths of space. So, what is the largest space object? Where is the most water and other matter? But it is not so. The mentioned cloud of vapor exists only because it is concentrated around a black hole endowed with enormous mass and is held in place by the force of its gravity. The gravitational field near such bodies turns out to be so strong that no objects are able to leave their boundaries, even if they move at the speed of light. Such “holes” in the Universe are called black precisely because light quanta are not able to overcome a hypothetical line called the event horizon. Therefore, they cannot be seen, but a huge mass of these formations constantly makes itself felt. The sizes of black holes, purely theoretically, may not be very large due to their fantastic density. At the same time, an incredible mass is concentrated in a small point in space, hence, according to the laws of physics, gravity arises.
The closest black holes to us
Our native Milky Way is classified by scientists as a spiral galaxy. Even the ancient Romans called it the “milk road”, since from our planet it has the corresponding appearance of a white nebula, spread out in the sky in the blackness of the night. And the Greeks came up with a whole legend about the appearance of this cluster of stars, where it represents milk splashing from the breasts of the goddess Hera.
Like many other galaxies, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive formation. They call it “Sagittarius A-star”. This is a real monster that literally devours its own gravitational field everything around itself, accumulating within its limits huge masses of matter, the amount of which is constantly increasing. However, the nearby region, precisely because of the existence of the indicated retractor funnel in it, turns out to be a very favorable place for the appearance of new star formations.
The local group, along with ours, also includes the Andromeda galaxy, which is closest to the Milky Way. It also belongs to the spiral, but several times larger and includes about a trillion stars. For the first time in written sources of ancient astronomers it was mentioned in the works of the Persian scientist As-Sufi, who lived more than a thousand years ago. This huge formation appeared to the mentioned astronomer as a small cloud. It is for its appearance from Earth that the galaxy is also often called the Andromeda Nebula.
Even much later, scientists could not imagine the scale and size of this cluster of stars. For a long time they endowed this cosmic formation with a relatively small size. The distance to the Andromeda Galaxy was also significantly downplayed, although in fact the distance to it is, according to modern science, the distance that even light travels over a period of more than two thousand years.
Supergalaxy and galaxy clusters
The largest object in space could be considered a hypothetical supergalaxy. Theories have been put forward about its existence, but the physical cosmology of our time considers the formation of such an astronomical cluster implausible due to the impossibility of gravitational and other forces to hold it as a single whole. However, a supercluster of galaxies exists, and today such objects are considered quite real.
A bright point in the sky, but not a star
Continuing the search for something remarkable in space, let's now ask the question differently: what is the largest star in the sky? And again we will not immediately find a suitable answer. There are many noticeable objects that can be identified with the naked eye on a beautiful clear night. One of them is Venus. This point in the sky is perhaps brighter than all the others. In terms of glow intensity, it is several times greater than the planets close to us, Mars and Jupiter. It is second in brightness only to the Moon.
However, Venus is not a star at all. But it was very difficult for the ancients to notice such a difference. With the naked eye, it is difficult to distinguish between stars burning by themselves and planets glowing with reflected rays. But even in ancient times, for example, Greek astronomers understood the difference between these objects. They called the planets “wandering stars” because they moved over time along loop-like trajectories, unlike most night celestial beauties.
It is not surprising that Venus stands out among other objects, because it is the second planet from the Sun, and the closest to Earth. Now scientists have found that the sky of Venus itself is completely covered with thick clouds and has an aggressive atmosphere. All this perfectly reflects the sun's rays, which explains the brightness of this object.
Star giant
The largest star discovered by astronomers to date is 2100 times larger than the Sun. It emits a crimson glow and is located in This object is located at a distance of four thousand light years from us. Experts call it VY Canis Major.
But a star is large only in size. Research shows that its density is actually negligible, and its mass is only 17 times the weight of our star. But the properties of this object cause fierce debate in scientific circles. The star is believed to be expanding but losing brightness over time. Many experts also express the opinion that the enormous size of the object, in fact, in some way only seems so. The optical illusion occurs due to the nebula enveloping the true shape of the star.
Mysterious space objects
What is a quasar in space? Such astronomical objects turned out to be a big puzzle for scientists of the last century. These are very bright sources of light and radio emission with relatively small angular dimensions. But despite this, with their glow they outshine entire galaxies. But what is the reason? It is assumed that these objects contain supermassive black holes surrounded by enormous gas clouds. Giant funnels absorb matter from space, due to which they constantly increase their mass. Such retraction leads to a powerful glow and, as a consequence, to enormous brightness resulting from the braking and subsequent heating of the gas cloud. It is believed that the mass of such objects exceeds the solar mass billions of times.
There are many hypotheses about these amazing objects. Some believe that these are the nuclei of young galaxies. But what seems most intriguing is the assumption that quasars no longer exist in the Universe. The fact is that the glow that terrestrial astronomers can observe today reached our planet for too long a period. It is believed that the closest quasar to us is located at a distance that light had to travel over a thousand million years. This means that on Earth it is possible to see only “ghosts” of those objects that existed in deep space in incredibly distant times. And then our Universe was much younger.
Dark matter
But this is not all of the secrets that the vast space holds. Even more mysterious is its “dark” side. As already mentioned, there is very little ordinary matter called baryonic matter in the Universe. Most of its mass consists, as is currently suggested, of dark energy. And 26.8% is occupied by dark matter. Such particles are not subject to physical laws, so they are too difficult to detect.
This hypothesis has not yet been fully confirmed by rigorous scientific data, but arose in an attempt to explain extremely strange astronomical phenomena associated with stellar gravity and the evolution of the Universe. All this remains to be seen only in the future.
The oceans are, of course, vast, and the mountains are impressive in their size. 7 billion people is also not a small number. Since we live on planet Earth (which has a diameter of 12,742 km), it is easy for us to forget how tiny we truly are. To realize this, all we have to do is look at the night sky. Looking into it, it becomes clear that we are just a speck of dust in an unimaginably vast universe. The list of objects below will help put human greatness into perspective.
10. Jupiter
The most big planet(diameter 142.984 km)
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Ancient astronomers called Jupiter the king of the Roman gods. Jupiter is the 5th planet from the Sun. Its atmosphere consists of 84% hydrogen and 15% helium with small additions of acetylene, ammonia, ethane, methane, phosphite and water vapor. The mass of Jupiter is 318 times greater than the mass of the Earth, and its diameter is 11 times greater than that of the Earth. The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the mass of all other planets in our solar system. Jupiter's volume can accommodate 1,300 Earth-sized planets. Jupiter has 63 satellites (moons) known to science, but almost all of them are very small and dim.
9. Sun
The largest object in the Solar System (diameter 1,391,980 km) 
The Sun (yellow dwarf star) is the largest object in the Solar System. Its mass makes up 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System, and Jupiter's mass takes up almost the rest. At the moment, the mass of the Sun consists of 70% hydrogen and 28% helium. All other components (metals) occupy less than 2%. The percentages change very slowly as the Sun converts hydrogen into helium at its core. Conditions in the Sun's core, which occupies approximately 25% of the star's radius, are extreme. The temperature reaches 15.6 million degrees Kelvin, and the pressure reaches 250 billion atmospheres. The solar power of 386 billion megawatts is provided by nuclear fusion reactions. Every second, about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted into 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.
8. Solar system
Our solar system consists of a central star (the Sun) and nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as numerous moons, millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets.
7. VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa)
The largest star in the Universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter) 
The star VY Canis Majoris (VY Canis Majoris) is the largest and also one of the brightest stars currently known. It is a red hypergiant in the constellation Canis Major. Its radius is 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of the Sun, and its diameter is 3 billion kilometers. If it were placed in our solar system, its surface would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers disagree with this statement and believe that the star VY Canis Majoris is actually much smaller, only 600 times larger than the Sun, and would only stretch to the orbit of Mars.
6. Most a large number of water ever discovered
Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever discovered in the Universe. The giant 12-billion-year-old cloud carries 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. A cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a Quasar, located 12 billion light-years from Earth. According to scientists, this discovery proved that water has dominated the Universe throughout its existence.
5. Extremely huge supermassive black holes
(21 billion times the mass of the Sun) 
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, ranging in size from hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, if not all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain a supermassive black hole at their center. One of these newly discovered monsters, weighing 21 billion times the mass of the Sun, is an egg-shaped swirl of stars. It is known as NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in a sprawling cloud of thousands of galaxies. This cloud is located 336 million light years from the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so big that our entire solar system would fit there about a dozen times over.
4. Milky Way
100,000-120,000 light years in diameter 
The Milky Way is a closed spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000-120,000 light years and containing 200-400 billion stars. It may contain at least that many planets, 10 billion of which may orbit within the habitable zone of their parent stars.
3. El Gordo "El Gordo"
Largest galaxy cluster (2×1015 solar masses) 
El Gordo is located over 7 billion light years from Earth, meaning it has been observed since birth. According to scientists involved in studying this issue, this cluster of galaxies is the most massive, hottest and emits more x-ray radiation, than any other known cluster at that distance or even further.
The central galaxy in the middle of El Gordo is unusually bright and has amazing blue rays at optical wavelengths. The authors believe that this extreme galaxy was formed as a result of the collision and merger of two galaxies at the center of each cluster.
Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical images, it was estimated that about 1% of the cluster's total mass is occupied by stars, while the rest is hot gas filling the gaps between stars and visible to the Chandra telescope. This ratio of gas to stars is consistent with results obtained from other massive clusters.
2. Universe
Estimated size - 156 billion light years 
A picture is worth a thousand words, so look at this poster and try to imagine/understand how big our Universe is. The mind-blowing numbers are listed below. Here is a link to the full-size image.
Earth 1.27×104 km
Sun 1.39×106 km
Solar System 2.99×1010 km or 0.0032 light years
Solar interstellar space 6.17×1014 km or 65 light years
Milky Way 1.51×1018 km or 160.00 light years
Local Group of Galaxies 3.1×1019 km or 6.5 million light years
Local Supercluster 1.2×1021 km or 130 million light years
Universe 1.5×1024 km or 156 billion light years (but no one knows for sure)
1. Multiverse
Imagine not one, but many universes existing at the same time. The multiverse (or meta-universe) is a hypothetical collection of many possible universes (including the historical universe in which we exist). Together they form everything that exists and can exist: the community of space, time, matter and energy, as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. But, again, there is no evidence for the existence of a multiverse, so it may well be that our universe is the largest.
The science
Of course, the oceans are vast and the mountains incredibly high. Moreover, the 7 billion people who call the Earth home is also an incredibly large number. But, living in this world with a diameter of 12,742 kilometers, it is easy to forget that this is, in essence, a trifle for such a thing as space. When we look into the night sky, we realize that we are just a grain of sand in a vast, infinite Universe. We invite you to learn about the largest objects in space; the size of some of them is difficult for us to imagine.
1) Jupiter
The largest planet in the solar system (142,984 kilometers in diameter)
Jupiter is our largest planet star system. Ancient astronomers named this planet in honor of the father of the Roman gods, Jupiter. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. The planet's atmosphere is 84 percent hydrogen and 15 percent helium. Everything else is acetylene, ammonia, ethane, methane, phosphine and water vapor.
The mass of Jupiter is 318 times the mass of the Earth, and its diameter is 11 times greater. The mass of this giant is 70 percent of the mass of all the planets in the solar system. Jupiter's volume is large enough to accommodate 1,300 Earth-like planets. Jupiter has 63 known moons, but most of them are incredibly small and fuzzy.
2) Sun
The largest object in the Solar System (1,391,980 kilometers in diameter)
Our Sun is a yellow dwarf star, the largest object in the star system in which we exist. The Sun contains 99.8 percent of the mass of this entire system, most the rest of the mass comes from Jupiter. The Sun currently consists of 70 percent hydrogen and 28 percent helium, with the remaining substances making up only 2 percent of its mass.
Over time, hydrogen in the Sun's core turns into helium. Conditions in the Sun's core, which makes up 25 percent of its diameter, are extreme. The temperature is 15.6 million Kelvin and the pressure is 250 billion atmospheres. The energy of the Sun is achieved through nuclear fusion reactions. Every second, approximately 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted into 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.
3) Our Solar System
15*10 12 kilometers in diameter
Our solar system contains just one star, which is the central object, and nine major planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as many moons, millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets.
4) Star VY Canis Majoris
The largest star in the Universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter)
VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star and one of the brightest stars in the sky. This is a red hypergiant, which is located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is approximately 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is approximately 3 billion kilometers.
If this star were placed in our solar system, it would block the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers believe that VY is actually smaller—about 600 times the size of the Sun—and would therefore only reach the orbit of Mars.
5) Huge deposits of water
Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reserves of water ever found in the Universe. The giant cloud, which is about 12 billion years old, contains 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.
A cloud of gaseous water surrounds a supermassive black hole, which is located 12 billion light years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost all of its existence, the researchers said.
6) Extremely large and massive black holes
21 billion solar masses
Supermassive black holes are the largest black holes in the galaxy, with a mass of hundreds or even thousands of millions of solar masses. Most, and perhaps all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.
One such monster, which has a mass 21 million times greater than the mass of the Sun, is an egg-shaped funnel of stars in the galaxy NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in a sprawling cloud of thousands of galaxies. The hole is located approximately 336 million light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so huge that it is 12 times larger in diameter than our Solar System.
7) Milky Way
100-120 thousand light years in diameter
The Milky Way is a rugged spiral galaxy that contains 200-400 billion stars. Each of these stars has many planets orbiting it.
According to some estimates, 10 billion planets are in the habitable zone, revolving around their parent stars, that is, in zones where there are all the conditions for the emergence of life similar to Earth.
8) El Gordo
The largest cluster of galaxies (2*10 15 solar masses)
El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth, so what we see today is just its early stages. According to researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits more radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further away.
The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The study authors suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.
Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical images, scientists estimate that 1 percent of the cluster's total mass is stars, and the rest is hot gas that fills the space between the stars. This ratio of stars to gas is similar to that in other massive clusters.
9) Our Universe
Size – 156 billion light years
Of course, no one could ever name the exact dimensions of the Universe, but, according to some estimates, its diameter is 1.5 * 10 24 kilometers. It’s generally difficult for us to imagine that there is an end somewhere, because the Universe includes incredibly gigantic objects:
Diameter of the Earth: 1.27*10 4 km
Diameter of the Sun: 1.39*10 6 km
Solar system: 2.99*10 10 km or 0.0032 light. l.
Distance from the Sun to the nearest star: 4.5 sv. l.
Milky Way: 1.51*10 18 km or 160,000 light. l.
Local group of galaxies: 3.1 * 10 19 km or 6.5 million light years. l.
Local supercluster: 1.2*10 21 km or 130 million light. l.
10) Multiverse
You can try to imagine not one, but many Universes that exist at the same time. Multiverse (or Multiple Universe) is a feasible collection of many possible Universes, including our own, which together contain everything that exists or can exist: the integrity of space, time, material matter and energy, as well as the physical laws and constants that describe it all.
However, the existence of other Universes besides ours has not been proven, so it is very likely that our Universe is one of a kind.
I think everyone knows that stars don't fall - they're just meteors that burn up as they enter the atmosphere. But what many people don’t know is that really falling stars also exist, and they are called moving stars. These are large balls of hot gas rushing through space at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour.
When a binary star system is consumed by a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy, one of the two partners is swallowed and the other is thrown away at high speed. Imagine how a huge ball of gas, four times the size of our Sun, rushes at tremendous speed!
Hell planet
Gliese 581 is simply "hell from hell". Seriously. The planet with all its nature strives to kill you. But despite this, scientists have determined that this hell may be the most likely candidate for future colonization. The planet orbits a red dwarf, many times smaller than our Sun, whose luminosity is only 1.3% of our star. The planet is much closer to its star than we are to ours. Because of this, it is in a tidally locked state, with one side of the planet always facing the star and the other facing out into space. Like our Moon.
Tidal locking has led to interesting features. If you come out on the side of the planet facing the sun, you will probably melt like a snowman. On the other side of the planet, you will definitely freeze instantly. However, it is theoretically possible to live in the “twilight zone” between the two extremes.
Life on Gliese 581, if there is one there, has its challenges. The planet orbits a red dwarf, which means the planet has a red sky due to the lower frequencies of the visible spectrum. Pure hell. Photosynthetic elements will have to get used to the constant bombardment of infrared radiation, which will turn them deep black. No salad would look appetizing on such a planet.
Castor system
If one or even two suns is not enough for you, look at the Castor system. As one of the two brightest points in the constellation Gemini in our night sky, this system is still brighter than its companion. The fact is that the Castor system is not one, not two, but all six stars revolving around a common center of mass. Three binary star systems revolve around each other - two hot and bright stars type A and four M-type red dwarfs. Together, these six stars produce 52.4 times more luminosity than our Sun.
Space raspberry and space rum
Some recent years scientists studied the cloud of dust in the center of our Milky Way. This dust cloud, called Sagittarius B2, smells like rum and tastes like raspberries! The gas cloud consists largely of ethyl formate, which gives raspberries its flavor and rum its distinctive smell. The giant cloud contains billions, billions, and billions more of this substance (and it would be wonderful if it were not saturated with particles of propyl cyanide). The creation and distribution of these complex molecules remains a mystery to scientists, so the intergalactic restaurant will remain closed for now.
Planet of Scorching Ice
Remember Gliese? This hellish place we visited earlier? Let's go back to the same solar system. As if one killer planet wasn't enough. Gliese supports a planet made almost entirely of ice - with a temperature of 439 degrees Celsius. The only reason this ice remains solid is the gigantic amount of water present on the planet. Gravity pulls it all towards the core, compressing the water molecules so tightly that they cannot evaporate.
Diamond Planet
This planet will decorate the neck of any girl, and maybe even some Bill Gates. 55 Cancri E - made entirely of crystalline diamond - would cost $26.9 nonillion dollars. Probably even the Sultan of Brunei dreams of one like this at night.
The giant diamond planet was once part of a binary star system until its partner began devouring it. However, the star was unable to carry its carbon core with it, and the carbon simply turned into diamond under the influence of high temperature and enormous pressure - with a surface temperature of 1648 degrees Celsius, conditions were almost ideal.
A third of the planet's mass is pure diamond. While Earth is covered in water and abundant in oxygen, this planet is made up of graphite, diamond and several silicates. The enormous gem is twice the size of Earth and eight times heavier, classifying it as a “super-Earth.”
Cloud Himiko
If there is an object somewhere that can show us the origins of a primordial galaxy, this is it. The Himiko Cloud is the most massive object yet discovered in the early Universe, and dates back to just 800 million years after the Big Bang. The Himiko Cloud amazes scientists with its gigantic size (only half the size of the Milky Way).
Himiko belongs to the so-called reionization era, or the period from 200 million to one billion years after the Big Bang - and is the first glimpse of early galaxy formation that scientists have been able to observe. Previously it was assumed that the Himiko cloud could be one large galaxy with a mass of about 40 billion solar, however, according to the latest data, the Himiko cloud may contain three galaxies at once, and relatively young ones.
Largest water reservoir in the Universe
Twelve billion light years away, at the heart of a quasar, lies the largest reservoir of water in the Universe. It contains approximately 140 trillion times more water than Earth's oceans. The water, unfortunately, takes the form of a massive cloud of gas several hundred light years in diameter. It is located next to the colossal black hole at the heart of the quasar, and the hole, in turn, is two hundred billion times larger than our Sun and at the same time constantly spewing out energy equivalent to that produced by 1000 trillion Suns! This is to give you an idea of the scale of the local brew.
The strongest electric current in the Universe
Just a couple of years ago, scientists stumbled upon electricity cosmic scale: 10^18 amperes, or approximately one trillion lightning bolts. Lightning is believed to originate from a huge black hole at the center of the galaxy, which is believed to contain a "powerful cosmic jet" at its core. Apparently, the black hole's powerful magnetic field allows it to launch these lightning bolts through dust and gas over 150,000 light-years away. And if you think that our galaxy is large, one such lightning bolt is one and a half times its size.
Astronomers have the concept of “the largest object in the Universe.” This status is periodically assigned to one or another object, but their very presence is already a sensation. What “giants” are we talking about and where are they located? And which one is really “the best”? Here are the results of some of the latest astronomical discoveries.
Scientists have discovered the age of the Universe
Supervoid
This largest cold spot in the Universe is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. The extent of the spot is 1.8 billion light years. Although "void" means "emptiness" in English, this name for this region of space is not entirely fair. It's just that there are about 30 percent fewer galaxy clusters here than in the space around them.
Cold spots are filled with cosmic relic microwave radiation. But so far scientists are not entirely clear how they arise. One version says that these are traces of black holes parallel universes. But another hypothesis claims that this is the result of the passage of protons through voids: passing through empty space, particles lose their energy... However, it is possible that there is no connection at all between cold spots and voids.
Superblob
In 2006, the title of the largest object in the Universe was awarded to a cosmic “bubble” (blob) with a length of 200 million light years, which is a giant accumulation of gas, dust and galaxies. It is curious that the galaxies in this cluster, which resembles a jellyfish in shape, are located four times more densely among themselves than usual in the Universe.
Clusters of galaxies and balls of gas inside a giant bubble are called Lyman Alpha bubbles. According to scientists, they formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
As for the superblob itself, it was likely formed when massive stars that existed at the dawn of space went supernova, releasing a gigantic volume of gas.
Perhaps the superblob is one of the most ancient space objects. So much gas accumulates in it that over time more and more new galaxies will begin to form from it.
Great Wall CfA2
It was discovered by American astrophysicist Margaret Joan Geller and John Peter Huchra while studying the redshift effect for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. CfA2 is 500 million light-years long and 16 million light-years wide. The name "Great Wall" is given to this space region because its shape resembles the Great Wall of China.
It is possible that the extent of CfA2 may be even greater - 750 million light years. But the exact parameters cannot yet be named, since the “wall” is partially located in the “avoidance zone” - it is covered by dense accumulations of gas and dust, which contributes to distortion optical lengths waves
Great Wall of Sloan
It was discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the Universe. This object consists of several superclusters, total length which is 1.4 billion light years away.
Although, according to the cosmological principle, objects larger than 1.2 billion light years cannot exist in the Universe, the presence Great Wall Sloane completely refutes this theory.
By the way, some of the clusters that make up the Great Wall of Sloan have very interesting characteristics. So, one of them has a core of galaxies, which from the outside looks like giant antennae. There is a process going on inside the other. close interaction and galaxy mergers.
Giant gamma ring
The giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is currently considered the second largest object in the Universe. Its extent is 5 billion light years.
The object was discovered like this. While studying gamma-ray bursts produced by the death of massive stars, astronomers noticed a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were located at the same distance from Earth. They formed a ring in the sky that was 70 times the diameter of the full Moon.
It was hypothesized that the gamma ring may be a projection of a certain sphere around which all bursts of gamma radiation occurred in a relatively short period of time - about 250 million years.
But what could create such a sphere? One theory says that galaxies cluster around regions with high concentrations of dark matter. But in fact, the exact reason for the formation of such structures remains unknown.