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The largest rotating structures in the Universe are discovered: the scale is astounding – illustration

Planets, stars, galaxies and even their clusters revolve in the Universe. The latter is not known for certain, which is why many scientists believe that the phenomenon ends on these huge structures. Meanwhile, cosmologists from the Institute of Astrophysics. Leibniz in Potsdam believe: even cosmic filaments – giant “tubes” from galaxies, rotate.

 

“There are such huge structures that entire galaxies are just specks of dust,” the authors of the publication in Nature Astronomy described the size. To understand the scale: in our galaxy alone, there are from 200 to 400 billion stars.

Galactically false color threads (illustration: AIP / A. Khalatyan / J. Fohlmeister):

According to current ideas, after the Big Bang, which led to the emergence of the Universe ~ 13.8 billion years ago, most of the gas, which makes up most of the known matter, collapsed, forming colossal layers, which then disintegrated into threads of a huge cosmic web.

See also: Scientists: We are alone – the Milky Way is located in a giant void

The authors investigated the parameters of more than 17,000 “small” filaments, analyzing the speed with which the galaxies that make up these “tubes” moved inside each of them, how and in what direction.

Galactic filaments (filaments) are the largest observed structures in the Universe, in the form of filaments from galaxies with an average length of 150-300 million light years. Filled with very hot (millions and tens of millions of degrees) and very rarefied (1-10 atoms per m3) gas. The threads are separated by gigantic cosmic voids – voids. Together they can form “great walls” – relatively flat complexes of clusters and superclusters. There are five main threads known for 2021.

Conclusions of scientists: galaxies still rotate around the central axis of each filament, and the maximum calculated speed is about 360,000 km / h.

Cosmologists do not know if all the threads in the universe are spinning, as they do not know for sure what sets galaxies in motion: “We are not quite sure what could cause a torque of this magnitude.”

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