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A supergalactic cluster captured in an infrared image by NASA. Photo: NASA.
Japanese astronomers used the Subaru telescope in Hawaii to identify a massive hydrogen gas cloud stretching 160 million light-years across, as reported by IFL Science. Its width is large enough to contain around 1,600 galaxies.
The study’s chosen region of the universe was due to the presence of the supergalactic cluster SSA22. Researchers used light from galaxies within SSA22 to study faint gas clouds, but they did not anticipate the extent of the gas cloud’s expansion both inside, around, and outside the cluster. The discovery was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
“We were quite surprised to see such a densely distributed gas structure extending far beyond what was predicted within the supergalactic cluster,” said Dr. Ken Mawatari from Osaka Sangyo University. “We need further observations on a larger scale to fully understand the largest structures in the young universe.”
Standard cosmological models suggest that structures in the early universe are typically smaller and then merge over time to form larger structures. The research team also concluded that the distribution of gas is uneven, with galaxies scattered throughout the supergalactic cluster. The discovery unveils a new relationship between gas clouds and galactic clusters in the early universe.