The largest space objects. Universal extremes

The distant ancestors of the modern inhabitants of the planet Earth believed that it was the largest object in the universe, and the small Sun and Moon revolve around it in the sky day after day. The smallest formations in space seemed to them the stars, which were compared with tiny luminous dots 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 now answer the question, what is the largest space object?

Age and structure of the universe

According to the latest data of science, our Universe has existed for about 14 billion years, it is during this period that its age is calculated. Having begun its existence at the point of cosmic singularity, where the density of matter was incredibly high, it, constantly expanding, reached its present state. To date, it is believed that the Universe is built from ordinary and familiar to us matter, of which all astronomical objects visible and perceived by instruments are composed, by only 4.9%.

Previously, when exploring space and the movement of 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 cunning sensors. At first glance, it seems that with the help of the achievements of science, answering the question of what is the largest space object is not at all difficult. However, it is not at all as easy as it seems.

Where is there a lot of water?

By what parameters to judge: by size, mass or quantity? For example, the largest cloud of water in space was found at a distance from us 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 4,000 times more water vapor than is contained in our entire galaxy, called the Milky Way. Scientists believe that this is the oldest cluster, formed long before the time when our Earth as a planet appeared to the world from the solar nebula. This object, rightfully attributed to the giants of the Universe, appeared almost immediately after its birth, just after some billion years, or maybe a little more.

Where is the largest mass concentrated?

Water is supposed to be the oldest and most abundant element not only on planet Earth, but also in the depths of space. It turns out, what is the largest space object? Where is the most water and other matter? But it is not so. Said cloud of vapor exists only because it is concentrated around a black hole endowed with a huge mass and is held by its force of attraction. The gravitational field next to such bodies turns out to be so strong that no objects are able to leave their limits, even if they move at the speed of light. Such "holes" in the Universe are called black precisely because the light quanta are not able to overcome the hypothetical line called the event horizon. Therefore, they cannot be seen, but a huge mass of these formations constantly makes itself felt. The dimensions 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 also arises.

Black holes closest to us

Our native Milky Way belongs to scientists to spiral galaxies. 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 splashed 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 everything around it with its own gravitational field, 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 retracting funnel in it, turns out to be a very good place for the appearance of new stellar formations.

The local group, along with ours, also includes the Andromeda galaxy, which is the 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 the written sources of ancient astronomers, it was mentioned in the writings of the Persian scientist As-Sufi, who lived more than a millennium ago. This huge formation appeared to the mentioned astronomer as a small cloud. It is for its view from Earth that the galaxy is also often referred to as the Andromeda Nebula.

Even much later, scientists could not imagine the scale and magnitude of this cluster of stars. They endowed this cosmic formation with a relatively small size for a long time. The distance to the Andromeda galaxy was also significantly reduced, although in fact the long way to it is, according to modern science, the distance that even light overcomes over a period of more than two thousand years.

Supergalaxies and clusters of galaxies

The largest object in space could be considered a hypothetical supergalaxy. Theories have been put forward about its existence, but the physical cosmology of modern times considers the formation of such an astronomical cluster improbable due to the impossibility of gravitational and other forces to keep it as a whole. However, superclusters of galaxies exist, and today such objects are considered quite real.

A bright point in the sky, but not a star

Continuing the search for remarkable things in space, let's now ask the question in a different way: what is the largest star in the sky? And again, we will not immediately find a suitable answer. There are many conspicuous objects that can be distinguished with the naked eye on a beautiful fine night. One of them is Venus. This point in the sky is perhaps the brightest of all the others. In terms of the intensity of the glow, it is several times greater than the planets Mars and Jupiter close to us. 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 the stars burning on their own and the 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", as they moved over time in loop-like trajectories, unlike most nightly 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 luminary discovered to date by astronomers 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 large star is only in size. Studies show that its density is actually negligible, and its mass is only 17 times the weight of our luminary. But the properties of this object cause fierce debate in scientific circles. It is assumed that the star is expanding, but eventually loses its brightness. Many of the experts also express the opinion that the huge size of the object in fact, in some way, only seems to be so. The optical illusion is due to the nebula enveloping the true shapes of the star.

Mysterious objects of space

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 are supermassive black holes surrounded by grandiose gas clouds. Giant funnels absorb matter from outer space, due to which they constantly increase their mass. Such retraction leads to a powerful glow and, as a result, to a huge brightness resulting from deceleration and subsequent heating of the gas cloud. It is believed that the mass of such objects exceeds the solar mass by billions of times.

There are many hypotheses about these amazing objects. Some believe that these are the nuclei of young galaxies. But the most intriguing seems to be the assumption that quasars no longer exist in the universe. The fact is that the glow that earthly astronomers can observe today reached our planet for too long a period. It is believed that the nearest quasar to us is located at a distance that light had to overcome in a thousand million years. And this means that on Earth it is possible to see only the "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 cosmos keeps. Even more mysterious is the "dark" side of it. As already mentioned, there is very little ordinary matter, called baryonic matter, in the Universe. Much of its mass is now thought to be dark energy. And 26.8% is occupied by dark matter. Such particles are not subject to physical laws, so it is too difficult to detect them.

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 in the future.

Thanks to the rapid development of technology, astronomers are making more and more interesting and incredible discoveries in the universe. For example, the title of "the largest object in the universe" passes from one find to another almost every year. Some open objects are so huge that they baffle even the best scientists of our planet with their existence. Let's talk about the ten largest of them.

SuperVoid

More recently, scientists have discovered the largest cold spot in the universe (at least known to the science of the universe). It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With its length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists, because they could not even imagine that such an object could really exist.

Despite the presence of the word “void” in the title (from the English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer clusters of galaxies than their surroundings. According to scientists, voids make up to 50 percent of the volume of the universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter around them. Two things make this void interesting: its unimaginable size and its relation to the mysterious cold relic spot WMAP.

Interestingly, the new discovered supervoid is now perceived by scientists as the best explanation for such a phenomenon as cold spots, or regions of outer space filled with cosmic relic (background) microwave radiation. Scientists have been arguing for a long time what these cold spots really are.

One proposed theory, for example, suggests that cold spots are the fingerprints of black holes in parallel universes, caused by quantum entanglement between universes.

However, many modern scientists are more inclined to believe that the appearance of these cold spots can be provoked by supervoids. This is explained by the fact that when protons pass through the void, they lose their energy and become weaker.

However, there is a possibility that the location of supervoids relatively close to the location of cold spots may be a mere coincidence. Scientists still have a lot of research to do on this and eventually find out whether the voids are the cause of the mysterious cold spots or their source is something else.

superblob

In 2006, the title of the largest object in the Universe was given to the discovery of a mysterious cosmic "bubble" (or blob, as scientists usually call them). True, he retained this title for a short time. This 200-million-light-year-long bubble is a gigantic collection of gas, dust, and galaxies. With some caveats, this object looks like a giant green jellyfish. The object was discovered by Japanese astronomers when they were studying one of the regions of space known for the presence of a huge volume of cosmic gas. The blob was found thanks to the use of a special telescopic filter, which unexpectedly indicated the presence of this bubble.

Each of the three "tentacles" of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser among themselves than is usual in the universe. The cluster of galaxies and gas balls inside this bubble are called Liman-Alpha bubbles. It is believed that these objects were formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are real relics of the ancient Universe. Scientists speculate that the blob itself formed when massive stars that existed in the early days of space suddenly went supernova and released a gigantic volume of gas. The object is so massive that scientists believe that it is, by and large, one of the first space objects to form in the universe. According to theories, over time, more and more new galaxies will form from the accumulated gas here.

Shapley Supercluster

For many years, scientists have believed that our Milky Way galaxy is being pulled across the universe toward the constellation Centaurus at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour. Astronomers theorize that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with a gravitational force that is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, scientists could not figure out what kind of object this was for a long time, since this object is located beyond the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), a region of the sky near the plane of the Milky Way, where the absorption of light by interstellar dust is so great that it is impossible to see what is behind it.

However, over time, X-ray astronomy came to the rescue, which developed strongly enough that it made it possible to look beyond the ZOA region and find out what is causing such a strong gravitational pool. All that scientists saw turned out to be an ordinary cluster of galaxies, which baffled scientists even more. These galaxies could not be the Great Attractor and could not have enough gravity to attract our Milky Way. This figure is only 44 percent of the required. However, as soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the "great cosmic magnet" is a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.

The Shapley Supercluster, which is a supermassive cluster of galaxies, is located behind the Great Attractor. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that it attracts both the Attractor itself and our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being pulled by this supercluster.

Great Wall CfA2

Like most of the objects on this list, the Great Wall (also known as the CfA2 Great Wall) once also boasted the title of the largest known space object in the universe. 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. According to scientists, it is 500 million light years long and 16 million light years wide. In its shape, it resembles the Great Wall of China. Hence the nickname he got.

The exact dimensions of the Great Wall are still a mystery to scientists. It could be much larger than thought, spanning 750 million light-years. The problem in determining the exact dimensions lies in its location. As in the case of the Shapley supercluster, the Great Wall is partially covered by the "zone of avoidance".

In general, this “zone of avoidance” does not allow us to see about 20 percent of the observable (reachable for current technologies) Universe, because dense accumulations of gas and dust (as well as a high concentration of stars) located inside the Milky Way greatly distort optical wavelengths. In order to see through the "zone of avoidance", astronomers have to use other types of waves, such as infrared, which can penetrate another 10 percent of the "zone of avoidance". Through which infrared waves cannot penetrate, radio waves, as well as near-infrared waves and X-rays, break through. However, the actual inability to see such a large region of space is somewhat frustrating for scientists. The "Zone of Avoidance" may contain information that could fill gaps in our knowledge of the cosmos.

Supercluster Laniakea

Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. The regions of space where these clusters are more closely spaced are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the universe, but recently a new way of mapping local space has been invented, shedding light on data previously unknown to astronomy.

The new principle of mapping the local space and the galaxies located in it is based not so much on the calculation of the physical location of the object, but on the measurement of the gravitational effect exerted by it. Thanks to the new method, the location of galaxies is determined and, on the basis of this, a map of the distribution of gravity in the Universe is compiled. Compared to the old ones, the new method is more advanced because it allows astronomers not only to mark new objects in the universe we see, but also to find new objects in places where it was not possible to look before. Since the method is based on measuring the level of influence of certain galaxies, and not on observing these galaxies, thanks to it we can even find objects that we cannot directly see.

The first results of the study of our local galaxies using the new research method have already been obtained. Scientists, based on the boundaries of the gravitational flow, mark a new supercluster. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it will allow us to better understand where our place in the universe is. The Milky Way was previously thought to be inside the Virgo supercluster, but a new method of investigation shows that this region is just an arm of the even larger Laniakea supercluster, one of the largest objects in the universe. It stretches for 520 million light years, and somewhere inside it we are.

Great Wall of Sloan

The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a gigantic galactic filament of multiple superclusters spread out across the universe like the tentacles of a giant octopus. At 1.4 billion light-years long, the "wall" was once thought to be the largest object in the universe.

The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as well understood as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together look like giant tendrils from the side. Another supercluster has a very high level of interaction between galaxies, many of which are currently undergoing a merger.

The presence of the "wall" and any other larger objects creates new questions about the mysteries of the universe. Their existence goes against the cosmological principle, which theoretically limits how big objects in the universe can be. According to this principle, the laws of the universe do not allow the existence of objects larger than 1.2 billion light years. However, objects like the Great Wall of Sloan completely contradict this opinion.

Group of quasars Huge-LQG7

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the center of quasars are supermassive black holes, which pull on the surrounding matter. This results in huge radiation, which is 1000 times more powerful than all the stars inside the galaxy. Currently, the third largest object in the universe is the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over 4 billion light-years. Scientists believe that this massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the main precursors and sources of the largest objects in the universe, such as, for example, Sloane's Great Wall.

The Huge-LQG group of quasars was discovered after analyzing the same data that discovered the Great Wall of Sloan. Scientists determined its presence after mapping one of the regions of space using a special algorithm that measures the density of quasars in a certain area.

It should be noted that the very existence of Huge-LQG is still a matter of controversy. While some scientists believe that this region of space does indeed represent a group of quasars, other scientists believe that the quasars within this region of space are randomly distributed and not part of the same group.

Giant gamma ring

Stretching for 5 billion light-years, the Giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is the second largest object in the universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. Astronomers studying bursts of gamma rays (huge bursts of energy that are formed as a result of the death of massive stars) discovered a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from the Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky, 70 times the diameter of the full moon. Considering that gamma-ray bursts themselves are quite rare, the chance that they will form a similar shape in the sky is 1 in 20,000. This allowed scientists to believe that they are witnessing one of the largest objects in the universe.

By itself, "ring" is just a term to describe the visual representation of this phenomenon as seen from Earth. There are theories that the giant gamma-ray ring may be a projection of a sphere around which all gamma-ray bursts occurred in a relatively short period of time, about 250 million years. True, here the question arises as to what kind of source could create such a sphere. One explanation revolves around the possibility that galaxies may cluster around a huge concentration of dark matter. However, this is just a theory. Scientists still don't know how these structures form.

Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona

The largest object in the universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of their observation of gamma rays. This object, dubbed the Great Wall of Hercules - the Northern Corona, spans 10 billion light-years, making it twice the size of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring. Since the brightest bursts of gamma rays are produced by larger stars, usually located in areas of space where there is more matter, astronomers each time metaphorically see each such burst as a needle prick into something larger. When scientists discovered that there were too many gamma ray bursts in the region of space towards the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, they determined that there was an astronomical object here, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.

An interesting fact: the name "The Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Crown" was coined by a Filipino teenager who wrote it down on Wikipedia (anyone who does not know can edit this electronic encyclopedia). Shortly after the news that astronomers had discovered a huge structure in the cosmic sky, a corresponding article appeared on the pages of Wikipedia. Despite the fact that the invented name does not quite accurately describe this object (the wall covers several constellations at once, and not just two), the world Internet quickly got used to it. Perhaps this is the first time that Wikipedia has given a name to a discovered and scientifically interesting object.

Since the very existence of this “wall” also contradicts the cosmological principle, scientists have to reconsider some of their theories about how the universe actually formed.

space web

Scientists believe that the expansion of the universe is not random. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of the cosmos are organized into one incredible structure, resembling filamentous connections that unite dense regions. These filaments are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.

According to scientists, the web formed at a very early stage in the history of the universe. The early stage of the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the universe. It is believed that the "threads" of this web played a big role in the evolution of the Universe, thanks to which this evolution accelerated. The galaxies inside these filaments have a significantly higher star formation rate. In addition, these threads are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. After forming in these filaments, galaxies move towards galaxy clusters, where they eventually die.

Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web really is. Moreover, they even detected its presence in the radiation of the distant quasar they were studying. Quasars are known to be the brightest objects in the universe. The light of one of them went straight to one of the filaments, which heated up the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists have drawn threads between other galaxies, thus compiling a picture of the "skeleton of the cosmos."

1 light second ≈ 300,000 km;

1 light minute ≈ 18,000,000 km;

1 light hour ≈ 1,080,000,000 km;

1 light day ≈ 26,000,000,000 km;

1 light week ≈ 181,000,000,000 km;

1 light month ≈ 790,000,000,000 km.

October 27, 2015, 03:38 pm

The ancient pyramids, the tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai, almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - just looking at these huge objects is breathtaking. And at the same time, compared to some objects in the universe, they are microscopic in size.

The largest asteroid

Today, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes referred to as a "dwarf planet".

largest planet

The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. A planet called TrES-4 orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.

The planet TrES-4 itself is a ball that consists mainly of hydrogen. Its size is 20 times the size of the Earth. The researchers claim that the diameter of the discovered planet is almost 2 times (more precisely, 1.7) the diameter of Jupiter (it is the largest planet in the solar system). The temperature of TrES-4 is about 1260 degrees Celsius.

The biggest black hole

In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, given their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, whose mass is 17 billion times (!) More than the mass of the Sun. This is a huge black hole at the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object that is larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.

largest galaxy

The so-called "super galaxies" are several galaxies merged together and located in galactic "clusters", clusters of galaxies. The largest of these "super galaxies" is IC1101, which is 60 times the size of the galaxy that hosts our solar system. The length of IC1101 is 6 million light years. By comparison, the Milky Way is only 100,000 light-years across.

The largest star in the universe

VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star and one of the brightest stars in the sky. It is a red hypergiant located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is about 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is about 3 billion kilometers.

Huge deposits of water

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reservoir of water ever found in the universe. The giant cloud, 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 located 12 billion light-years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost its entire existence, the researchers said.

largest cluster of galaxies

El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light-years from Earth, so what we are seeing today is just an early stage of it. According to the researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits the most radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further.

The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The authors of the studies suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical imaging, 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 the ratio in other massive clusters.

SuperVoid

superblob

Shapley Supercluster

As soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the "great cosmic magnet" is a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.

The Shapley Supercluster is a supermassive cluster of galaxies. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being pulled by this supercluster.

Supercluster Laniakea

Great Wall of Sloan

Group of quasars Huge-LQG7

Giant gamma ring

Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona

space web

Our universe is truly huge. Pulsars, planets, stars, black holes and hundreds of other objects of incomprehensible size that are in the universe.

And today we would like to talk about the 10 biggest things. In this list, we've put together a collection of some of the largest objects in space, including nebulae, pulsars, galaxies, planets, stars, and more.

Without further ado, here is a list of the ten biggest things in the universe.

To date, the largest star is UY Scutum in the constellation Scutum, about 9500 light-years away. This is one of the brightest stars - it is 340 thousand times brighter than our Sun. Its diameter is 2.4 billion km, which is 1700 times larger than our sun, with a weight of only 30 times the mass of the sun. It is a pity that it is constantly losing mass, it is also called the fastest burning star. Perhaps that is why some scientists consider the Cygnus NML to be the largest star, while others consider VY Canis Major.

Black holes are not measured in kilometers, the key indicator is their mass. The most gigantic black hole is in the galaxy NGC 1277, which is not the largest. However, the hole in the galaxy NGC 1277 has 17 billion solar masses, which is 17% of the total mass of the galaxy. For comparison, the black hole in our Milky Way has a mass of 0.1% of the total mass of the galaxy.

7. The largest galaxy

The mega-monster among the galaxies known in our time is IC1101. The distance to the Earth is about 1 billion light years. Its diameter is about 6 million light years and holds about 100 trillion. stars, for comparison, the diameter of the Milky Way is 100 thousand light years. Compared to the Milky Way, IC 1101 is over 50 times larger and 2,000 times more massive.

lyaxes (drops, clouds) Lyman-alpha are amorphous bodies resembling amoebas or jellyfish in shape, consisting of a huge concentration of hydrogen. These blots are the initial and very short stage of the birth of a new galaxy. The largest of them, LAB-1, is over 200 million light-years across and lies in the constellation of Aquarius.

In the photo on the left, LAB-1 is fixed by devices, on the right - an assumption of how it may look close.

A radio galaxy is a type of galaxy that emits much more radio emission than other galaxies.

Galaxies, as a rule, are located in clusters (clusters), which have a gravitational connection and expand along with space and time. What is in those places where there is no location of galaxies? Nothing! The area of the Universe in which there is only "nothing" is emptiness. The largest of them is the void of Bootes. It is located in close proximity to the constellation Bootes and has a diameter of about 250 million light years. The distance to the Earth is approximately 1 billion light years

The largest supercluster of galaxies is the Shapley supercluster. Shapley is located in the constellation Centaurus and appears as a bright densification in the distribution of galaxies. This is the largest array of objects bound together by gravity. Its length is 650 million light years.

The largest group of quasars (a quasar is a bright, energetic galaxy) is Huge-LQG, also called U1.27. This structure consists of 73 quasars and has a diameter of 4 billion light years. However, the Great GRB Wall, which has a diameter of 10 billion light years, also claims the championship - the number of quasars is unknown. The presence of such large groups of quasars in the Universe contradicts Einstein's Cosmological principle, so their research is doubly interesting for scientists.

If astronomers argue about other objects in the Universe, then in this case, almost all of them are unanimous in their opinion that the largest object in the Universe is the Cosmic Web. Endless clusters of galaxies surrounded by black matter form "nodes" and with the help of gases - "threads", which outwardly very much resemble a three-dimensional web. Scientists believe that the cosmic web entangles the entire universe and connects all objects in space.

The science

Of course, the oceans are vast, and the mountains are incredibly high. What's more, the 7 billion people that the Earth is home to 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 the largest planet in our star system. Ancient astronomers named this planet after Jupiter, the father of the Roman gods. 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 the 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 contain 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 of the rest of the mass is Jupiter. The Sun is currently 70 percent hydrogen and 28 percent helium, with the remaining matter accounting for just 2 percent of its mass.

Over time, the hydrogen in the Sun's core turns into helium. Conditions in the Sun's core, which is 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

1510 12 kilometers in diameter*

Our solar system includes 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 satellites, millions of solid asteroids and billions of icy comets.

4) Star VY Canis Major

The largest star in the universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter)

If this star were placed in our solar system, it would close the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers believe that VY is actually smaller—about 600 times the size of the Sun—and therefore would only reach the orbit of Mars.

5) Huge deposits of water

6) Extremely large and massive black holes

21 billion solar masses

Supermassive black holes are the largest black holes in the galaxy, weighing hundreds or even thousands of millions of solar masses. Most, if not all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.

One such monster, 21 million times the mass of the Sun, is an egg-shaped funnel of stars in NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the stretched cloud of thousands of galaxies. The hole is located about 336 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so huge that it is 12 times larger than our solar system in diameter.

7) Milky Way

100-120 thousand light years in diameter

The Milky Way is a broken spiral galaxy that contains 200-400 billion stars. There are many planets revolving around each of these stars.

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 conditions for the origin of life like Earth.

8) El Gordo

The largest cluster of galaxies (2 10 15 solar masses)*

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. In general, it is difficult for us to imagine that there is an end somewhere, because the Universe includes incredibly gigantic objects:

Earth Diameter: 1.27*104km

Sun diameter: 1.39*106 km

Solar system: 2.99 * 10 10 km or 0.0032 sv. l.

Distance from the Sun to the nearest star: 4.5 sv. l.

Milky Way: 1.51*10 18 km or 160,000 sv. l.

Local group of galaxies: 3.1 * 10 19 km or 6.5 million sv. l.

Local supercluster: 1.2 * 10 21 km or 130 million sv. l.

10) Multiverse

One can try to imagine not one, but many Universes that exist at the same time. The Multiverse (or Multiple Universe) is a possible collection of many possible Universes, including our own, which collectively comprise everything that exists or can exist: the integrity of the cosmos, time, material matter and energy, and the physical laws and constants that all this describe.

However, the existence of other Universes besides ours has not been proven, so it is very likely that our Universe is the only one of its kind.

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