Newfound Blob is Largest Object in the Universe

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Barb

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The article's short, so I'm reprinting it here from Space.com:

An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say.

The galaxies and gas bubbles, called Lyman alpha blobs, are aligned along three curvy filaments that formed about 2 billion years after the universe exploded into existence after the theoretical Big Bang. The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea.

The galaxies within the newly found structure are packed together four times closer than the universe's average.

Some of the gas bubbles are up to 400,000 light years across, nearly twice the diameter of our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. Scientists think they formed when massive stars born early in the history of the universe exploded as supernovas and blew out their surrounding gases. Another theory is that the bubbles are giant gas cocoons that will one day give birth to new galaxies.

The finding will give researchers new insight into what the structure of cosmos looks like at the largest scale.

"Something this large and this dense would have been rare in the early universe," said study team member Ryosuke Yamauchi from Tohoku University.

"The structure we discovered and others like are probably the precursors of the largest structures we see today which contain multiple clusters of galaxies," Yamauchi said.
Click to expand...
 
It would look like a bunch of gaaxies and masive gas clouds scrammed in like sardines. I wonder if any life lives in this "blob".
 
We should be ashamed. We've taken a totally serious thread, and turn it into a joke about a word.




























Oh well. Blob. xD
 
Hey, blobs are funny. Here's an image of what scientists think it looks like:
 
Interesting. The use of blob in a scientific term. :rolleyes:
 
Yeah... they seem to be like kindergardeners discussing the fate of Pluto's planethood as we speak. Ah, scientists. :)

Scientist1: Well... Pluto has to be a planet cause it has lots of things going for it!
Scientist2: Like what?
Scientist1: It's named for Mickey's dog. It's great on a hot summer's day.. uh..
Scientist2: So, my Xena Warrior plannet could kick your dog in the ice balls*!
Scientist1: Like your planent has any balls.
Scinetist3: Whoa easy boys. I say we should call Superman to check things out. He likes cold, isolated places right?
In favor, we could rename it Krypton it in honor of his destroyed home!
{Punched}

*In actuality, Pluto is a 'dual' planetary system. Under the new definition, Charon, Pluto's satellite, would be reclassified as a
planet due to the fact that they orbit a barycenter (they orbit a fixed imaginary point, not each other). Hence, 2 icy balls.
 
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I personally like the name they gave it in the picture Barb put up. Cosmic Amoeba > Blob. And it sounds vaguely more scientific, too.
 
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