Three-dimensional maps of the universe have revealed the so-called South Pole Wall, a massive cosmic structure that stretches 1.4 billion light-years and contains thousands of galaxies.
An international team of scientists led by Daniel Pomarède of France’s Paris-Saclay University and R. Brent Tully of the US’ University of Hawaii reported the findings in The Astrophysics Journal on July 10. The newly discovered cosmic structure is akin to a curtain that stretches along the southern border of the universe.
Although multiple enormous cosmic structures have previously been found, including the Great Wall, the Sloan Great Wall, the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall and the Bootes Void, the South Pole Wall is special because it’s so close: only half a billion light-years away.
In fact, it is located right behind the Milky Way galaxy in the Zone of Galactic Obscuration, an area in the southern part of the sky where the Milky Way’s bright light blocks other masses from sight.
“The discovery is a wonderful poster child for the power of visualizations in research,” Tully added.
The researchers were able to find the structure by measuring redshift, which is the speed at which objects move away from Earth due to the universe’s expansion. This technique is based on the redshift phenomenon, which occurs when electromagnetic radiation from an object experiences an increase in wavelength. The further away from the observer an object is, the faster it appears to be receding, and the light it emits shifts to longer, lower-energy wavelengths, appearing red to the observer, hence the phenomenon’s name.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
