Remove ads

Giant Wall of Galaxies discovered hidden in plain sight

tankdrop24

tankdrop24

Tread First into Hell
Location
The Center of the Universe: Toronto, Canada
Pronouns
He/Him
Article:
A Giant 'Wall' of Galaxies Has Been Found Stretching Across The Universe




The Universe isn't just a random scattering of galaxies sprinkled throughout an expanding void. The closer we look, the more we see that there are structures - some of which are incomprehensibly vast groupings and clusters of galaxies that are gravitationally bound together.


Such a structure has just been discovered arcing across the southern edge of the sky, and it's a colossus, spanning an immense 1.37 billion light-years from end to end. Its discoverers have named it the South Pole Wall.

Although the size is remarkable - it's one of the largest structures in space we've ever seen - we know exactly what the South Pole Wall is. It's a galaxy filament, a huge formation of galaxies that forms a border between the empty spaces of cosmic voids that together form the cosmic web. Hence, we call it a wall.


The most notable bit about this is how close it is and why it remained undiscovered until recently. Basically, this thing is right in the same direction as our galaxy's disc, which concealed it.
 
So the universe is ever so slightly less empty than we thought it was?
 
DestinyPlayer said:
The most important question is, what is this wall keeping out? Or, even worse, keeping in?

Man, is this discovery food for cosmic horror fiction.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'wall' in context.

Bear in mind that the spaces between galaxies along this 'wall' are going to be, like, dozens or hundreds of times bigger than the galaxies themselves. And galaxies are in turn basically empty space with some glowy bits in; we live in a galaxy and notice how it is mostly empty space and not some kind of building block.

This isn't a wall in the sense of a 'wall of LEGO bricks.' It's a wall in the sense of, say, 'wall of cirrus clouds.'

​

If you squint and turn your head sideways, those clouds form a "wall" between, say, the ground and outer space. But they sure as heck aren't keeping anything in or out.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'wall' in context.

Bear in mind that the spaces between galaxies along this 'wall' are going to be, like, dozens or hundreds of times bigger than the galaxies themselves. And galaxies are in turn basically empty space with some glowy bits in; we live in a galaxy and notice how it is mostly empty space and not some kind of building block.

This isn't a wall in the sense of a 'wall of LEGO bricks.' It's a wall in the sense of, say, 'wall of cirrus clouds.'
[pic]​

If you squint and turn your head sideways, those clouds form a "wall" between, say, the ground and outer space. But they sure as heck aren't keeping anything in or out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Alternatively, it means that something already broke through the wall :V
 
DestinyPlayer said:
Alternatively, it means that something already broke through the wall :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nah, it means that whatever it is keeping out is:

1. Unthinkably vast, such that million light year gaps aren't small enough for it to slip through and

2. Unable to bear the proximity of suns, even though they are utterly miniscule in comparison to it.

But this structure is hardly unique. These "walls" are the basic structure of galactic organization throughout the universe. So clearly this isn't just a cage, it is a cell in a prison that comprises the entire cosmos. The only question is which is more disturbing; beings with the capacity to shape an entire universe to contain a threat, or the unthinkably vast, light hating prisoners that could frighten those beings so much that they would engage in such an unthinkable project.

Probably it's the giant space vampires.
 
Last edited:
Space is anything but empty, it's just that the vast majority of the stuff in it is either too big or too small for us to interact with or properly grasp how much of it there is.
 
Last edited:
Reveen said:
Space is anything but empty, it's just that the vast majority of the stuff in it is either too big or too small for us to interact with or properly grasp how much of it there is.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you treat "beyond the van der Waals radius* of an atom" as being empty space, well... yeah, it's extremely empty.

*Let's say "the distance at which Pauli repulsion becomes weaker than dispersion", and handwave about neutron stars (very little volume) and weakly/non-interacting particles (e.g. neutrinos, dark matter).
 
This prison is built to contain ME every filament is a link in my chains, every galaxy a molecule, every star an atom in my bindings.
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top