The largest structure in the universe contains just 1,600 galaxies

A Japanese research group found the largest gas-powered cloud in the universe, originally 11.5 billion years ago, with a diameter of 160 million light-years.

Japanese astronomers using the telescope Subaru in Hawaii found a giant cloud of hydrogen gas that spread 160 million light-years at a period of 11.5 billion years ago, according to IFL Science. Its breadth is large enough to accommodate just 1,600 galaxies.

A cluster of galaxies in the infrared image of NASA.(Photo: NASA).

The cosmic region was selected in the study due to the presence of the superspeed SSA22 . The researchers used light from the galaxy in SSA22 to learn about faint gas clouds but they did not anticipate the extent of the gas cloud inside, around and outside the cluster. The findings are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

"We are very surprised to find that the thick gas structure is much wider than anticipated in the galaxy," said Dr. Ken Mawatari of Osaka University Sangyo. "We need more observations in a wider scope to have a full view of the largest structure in this young universe ."

The standard cosmology model shows the structures in the early universe that were often smaller in size, then followed by time to merge into large structures. The team also concluded that the distribution of gas is not uniform with the way galaxies spread out in the cluster of super clusters. The discovery reveals a new relationship between the cloud of gas and clusters of galaxies in the early universe.