European Space Agency/Euclid Consortium/NASA; image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi
- Scientists have discovered a giant ring-shaped structure in space, dubbed the Big Ring.
- The discovery challenges our understanding of the universe.
- The scientist who discovered it said it felt "surreal" after making the major discovery.
Scientists have discovered a massive ring-shaped structure in space that challenges our understanding of the universe.
The cosmic megastructure, dubbed the Big Ring, has a diameter of about 1.3 billion light-years and is among the largest structures ever observed. It appears to be roughly the size of 15 of Earth's moons.
The Big Ring is so large that it challenges the cosmological principle. This fundamental cosmological assumption says that the universe is homogeneous on a large scale and looks the same in all directions.
The structure observed more than 9 billion light-years from Earth, is the latest large structure discovered that contradicts the principle.
"From current cosmological theories, we didn't think structures on this scale were possible," Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire who identified the Big Ring, said, per The Guardian.
"We could expect maybe one exceedingly large structure in all our observable universe."
Lopez had also previously discovered the Giant Arc in 2021, which spans 3.3 billion light-years and appears near the Big Ring, both near the constellations of Boötes the Herdsman.
"These oddities keep getting swept under the rug, but the more we find, we're going to have to come face-to-face with the fact that maybe our standard model needs rethinking," she said. "As a minimum, it's incomplete. As a maximum, we need a completely new theorem of cosmology."
Lopez said that she made the discoveries unwittingly and that it was "really surreal," per the BBC.
"Ido have to pinch myself, because I made these discoveries accidentally, they were serendipitous discoveries. But it is a big thing and I can't believe that I'm talking about it, I don't believe that it's me," she said.
The Big Ring is not observable by the naked eye but appears to be a perfect ring shape. However, analysis revealed that it has more of a coil shape, like a corkscrew, and has its face aligned with Earth.
It is made up of galaxies and galaxy clusters, according to the BBC.
The findings were presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans on Thursday.