Astronomers have identified a massive cosmic filament dubbed Quipu, stretching 1.3 billion light-years in length and weighing around 200 quadrillion times the mass of the Sun. This enormous structure forces scientists to rethink their understanding of cosmic geography and its impact on galaxy motions, the Big Bang’s afterglow, and even the expansion of space itself.
Quipu is not just long, but also incredibly massive, corraling galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter into a single zone. Its presence can subtly alter measurements of cosmic expansion and affect the cosmic microwave background radiation. The discovery validates predictions made by simulations using the popular ΛCDM model.
Located about 400 million to 800 million light-years from Earth, Quipu is close enough to exert significant gravitational forces on its surroundings. Researchers used a clever shortcut to find it: analyzing X-ray emissions from galaxy clusters that glow when gas inside them reaches tens of millions of degrees. By tracing these clusters’ densest knots, they mapped the filament’s spine.
Quipu contains roughly one-quarter of all matter in its neighborhood and produces gentle streaming motions in neighboring galaxies, influencing their motion along the Hubble flow. The structure also leaves a signature on the cosmic microwave background radiation through the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect.
The discovery has significant implications for our understanding of galaxy formation, evolution, and environmental pressures that shape stellar birth and death. Researchers hope to study Quipu’s effects by comparing field galaxies with those embedded within its filament. The structure’s presence can even complicate gravitational lensing and surveys designed to chart dark energy.
Future studies plan to map Quipu’s detailed structure, track the evolution of galaxies inside it, and investigate potential connections between this superstructure and nearby regions, such as the Vela supercluster.
Source: https://www.earth.com/news/quipu-new-largest-structure-in-universe-weighs-staggering-200-quadrillion-solar-masses