The oceans are, of course, vast, and the mountains are impressive in their size. 7 billion people is also not a small number. Since we live on planet Earth (which has a diameter of 12,742 km), it is easy for us to forget how tiny we truly are. To realize this, all we have to do is look at the night sky. Looking into it, it becomes clear that we are just a speck of dust in an unimaginably vast universe. The list of objects below will help put human greatness into perspective.
10. Jupiter
Largest planet (diameter 142.984 km)
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Ancient astronomers called Jupiter the king of the Roman gods. Jupiter is the 5th planet from the Sun. Its atmosphere consists of 84% hydrogen and 15% helium with small additions of acetylene, ammonia, ethane, methane, phosphite and water vapor. Jupiter's mass is 318 times more mass Earth, and its diameter is 11 times greater than that of the Earth. The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the mass of all other planets in our solar system. Jupiter's volume can accommodate 1,300 Earth-sized planets. Jupiter has 63 satellites (moons) known to science, but almost all of them are very small and dim.
9. Sun
Largest object solar system(diameter 1,391,980 km) 
The Sun (yellow dwarf star) is the largest object in the Solar System. Its mass makes up 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System, and Jupiter's mass takes up almost the rest. On at the moment The mass of the Sun consists of 70% hydrogen and 28% helium. All other components (metals) occupy less than 2%. The percentages change very slowly as the Sun converts hydrogen into helium at its core. Conditions in the Sun's core, which occupies approximately 25% of the star's radius, are extreme. The temperature reaches 15.6 million degrees Kelvin, and the pressure reaches 250 billion atmospheres. The solar power of 386 billion megawatts is provided by nuclear fusion reactions. Every second, about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted into 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.
8. Solar system
Our solar system consists of a central star (the Sun) and nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as numerous moons, millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets.
7. VY Canis Major(VYCMa)
The largest star in the Universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter) 
The star VY Canis Majoris (VY Canis Majoris) is the largest and also one of the most bright stars currently known. It is a red hypergiant in the constellation Canis Major. Its radius is 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of the Sun, and its diameter is 3 billion kilometers. If it were placed in our solar system, its surface would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers disagree with this statement and believe that the star VY Canis Majoris is actually much smaller, only 600 times larger than the Sun, and would only stretch to the orbit of Mars.
6. Most large number water ever discovered
Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever discovered in the Universe. The giant 12-billion-year-old cloud carries 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. A cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a Quasar, located 12 billion light-years from Earth. According to scientists, this discovery proved that water has dominated the Universe throughout its existence.
5. Extremely huge supermassive black holes
(21 billion times the mass of the Sun) 
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, ranging in size from hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, if not all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain a supermassive black hole at their center. One of these newly discovered monsters, weighing 21 billion times the mass of the Sun, is an egg-shaped swirl of stars. It is known as NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in a sprawling cloud of thousands of galaxies. This cloud is located 336 million light years from the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so big that our entire solar system would fit there about a dozen times over.
4. Milky Way
100,000-120,000 light years in diameter 
The Milky Way is a closed spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000-120,000 light years and containing 200-400 billion stars. It may contain at least that many planets, 10 billion of which may orbit within the habitable zone of their parent stars.
3. El Gordo "El Gordo"
Largest galaxy cluster (2×1015 solar masses) 
El Gordo is located over 7 billion light years from Earth, meaning it has been observed since birth. According to scientists involved in the study, this cluster of galaxies is the most massive, hottest and emits more X-rays than any other known cluster at this distance or even further.
The central galaxy in the middle of El Gordo is unusually bright and has amazing blue rays at optical wavelengths. The authors believe that this extreme galaxy was formed as a result of the collision and merger of two galaxies at the center of each cluster.
Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical images, it was estimated that about 1% of the cluster's total mass is occupied by stars, while the rest is hot gas filling the gaps between stars and visible to the Chandra telescope. This ratio of gas to stars is consistent with results obtained from other massive clusters.
2. Universe
Estimated size - 156 billion light years 
A picture is worth a thousand words, so look at this poster and try to imagine/understand how big our Universe is. The mind-blowing numbers are listed below. Here is a link to the full-size image.
Earth 1.27×104 km
Sun 1.39×106 km
Solar System 2.99×1010 km or 0.0032 light years
Solar interstellar space 6.17×1014 km or 65 light years
Milky Way 1.51×1018 km or 160.00 light years
Local Group of Galaxies 3.1×1019 km or 6.5 million light years
Local Supercluster 1.2×1021 km or 130 million light years
Universe 1.5×1024 km or 156 billion light years (but no one knows for sure)
1. Multiverse
Imagine not one, but many universes existing at the same time. The multiverse (or meta-verse) is a hypothetical collection of many possible universes (including the historical universe in which we exist). Together they form everything that exists and can exist: the community of space, time, matter and energy, as well as physical laws and the constants that describe them. But, again, there is no evidence for the existence of a multiverse, so it may well be that our universe is the largest.
It is not always that people, looking at the sky, can imagine the true size of the Sun. What can I say, even the size of the Earth itself is difficult to imagine when you stand on its surface. People are accustomed to the fact that bugs, cats and dogs are small, but they themselves are big and strong, perhaps a little smaller than elephants, but still big. On a cosmic scale, a person cannot even be compared with a bacterium. If we consider that our planet accommodates 7.7 billion people living on 30% of its territory (the rest is occupied by the World Ocean), then each person individually already resembles a grain of sand. But the Earth is not even the largest planet in the solar system. But if I now tell you the figure of 2.4 billion kilometers, then you can hardly imagine how much or how little it is. Therefore, we will begin to consider the largest objects in the Universe from the most accessible examples to humans, so that you have something to compare with.
You and I all know that beetles are small insects, no larger than a fingernail. However, some types of beetles can reach 15-17 centimeters in length. For example, the body length of titan lumberjacks varies between 8-17 centimeters, but according to some data it can reach 21 centimeters. The average height of a person ranges from 170 to 180 centimeters. This means that people are only 10 times larger than small bugs, and this is nothing on the scale of the Universe, and you will soon see this. By the way, the largest working phone on Earth is a copy of the Samsung SCH-R450, created by Cricket. The phone dimensions are 4.5×3.5×0.74 meters. The largest land animal in the world is the African elephant. Males of this species reach from 6 to 7.5 meters in length and up to 3.8 meters in height. And the blue (or blue) whale is considered the largest living creature on our planet. The size of the animal reaches 30 meters in length, and its weight reaches 200 tons. That is, to get the length of a whale you need approximately seventeen people.
The most tall building in the world is located in Dubai, United United Arab Emirates. Burj Khalifa (that's the name of the building) rises 828 meters above the ground. No matter how long you count, that’s about 28 whales or 480 people. IN Saudi Arabia At the moment, construction is underway on the Burj Jeddah building, the height of which will be 1,007 meters. If we take ten thousand of these towers and stack them on top of each other, we get the length Russian Federation from west to east, namely 10,000 kilometers. This is greater than the radius of our planet, whose standardized equatorial value is 6,378 km. The length of the equator (an imaginary line running through the middle of the globe and dividing it into two hemispheres) is 40,075 kilometers.
Now we're getting to the fun part. Our solar system consists of more than just the sun and planets. Someone, of course, will immediately add that there are also satellites and asteroids. And those who have been following astronomical discoveries and disputes over the past decades also know about the existence of dwarf planets. But we will analyze everything in detail. Let's start with the fact that in 1801 the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres. It was mistakenly considered a full-fledged planet for a whole decade, then it was classified as an asteroid, and only in 2006 did it take its place among the dwarf planets. Ceres was previously considered the most large asteroid. The diameter of this dwarf planet is 945-950 kilometers. Now the most large asteroid The solar system is considered to be Vesta with a diameter of 525.5 km.
Pluto, unlike Ceres, which received a “promotion” in the 21st century, has a sadder history. From its discovery in 1930 until 2006, Pluto was believed to be the ninth planet in the solar system. However, the International Astronomical Union decided to reconsider the concept of "planet" in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. According to the new classification, Pluto became the largest dwarf planet along with Eris. The diameter of the two objects is 2,376 and 2,326 kilometers, respectively. For comparison: the diameter of the Moon is 3,474 kilometers. The largest satellite in the solar system revolves around Jupiter and is called Ganymede. This is one of four moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Its diameter is 5,268 kilometers.
But all the objects discussed above, as you understand, even smaller than Earth, but we have collected here to learn about the largest objects in the Universe. Let's start with Jupiter - itself big planet Solar system. The diameter of this gas giant is approximately 139,822 kilometers. Determining the largest exoplanet (the so-called planets that are located outside the solar system) in the Universe is a rather difficult task, since some gas giants are so large that they look like stars, but their mass is insufficient to support nuclear reactions of burning hydrogen and turning into a star . Discovered in 2013, HD 100546 b is believed to be the largest exoplanet known, with a diameter 6.9 times that of Jupiter. The diameter of the Sun, the closest star to Earth, is ten times the diameter of Jupiter (or 109 times the diameter of Earth)—1.392 million kilometers. The mass of the Sun is 99.866% of the total mass of the entire Solar System.
However, if you think that the Sun is a large object, then I will disappoint you. The biggest famous star in the Universe is the red hypergiant UY in the constellation Scutum (UY Scuti). This star has a diameter of 2.4 billion kilometers, which is 1,700 times larger than the Sun! Imagine that you drew a circle with a diameter of 1 mm on the asphalt with chalk (think of it as just putting a dot), so the UY Shield will be represented by a circle with a diameter of almost two meters. If you place UY Scuti at the center of the Solar System, its photosphere (the radiating layer of the stellar atmosphere) will encompass the orbit of Jupiter. But there's another one here interesting fact. The radius of the red hypergiant NML Cygnus is estimated from 1,642 to 2,755 solar radii, which means that in theory this star could be one and a half times larger than UY Scuti.
But why argue about which star is bigger, if it's still crumbs compared to black holes - regions of space-time whose gravitational attraction is so strong that even objects moving at the speed of light cannot leave them. In 2018, an object was discovered that received the rather complex name SDSS J140821.67+025733.2. In fact, this is a quasar - quasi-stellar radiosource, which translated into Russian means “star-like radio source.” Quasars are at the center of active galaxies and are among the brightest objects known in the Universe, emitting a thousand times more energy than, for example, the Milky Way (the galaxy in which we live). At the center of quasars are supermassive black holes that absorb surrounding matter, forming an accretion disk, which is the source of radiation. The diameter of SDSS J140821 is 1.17 trillion kilometers, or about one-tenth of a light year.
I remembered the astronomical unit “light year” not by chance, but so that you can at least roughly imagine the following quantities. Our Milky Way galaxy has a diameter of 105,700 light years, which is a million times larger than the diameter of SDSS J140821. Now look at the picture above, because it shows the largest currently known galaxy in the Universe, IC 1101. Its diameter is between 4 and 6 million light years. Galaxy IC 1101 is located approximately one billion light years away. It contains about 100 trillion stars, while our galaxy may contain between 200 and 400 billion stars. Galaxies, in turn, are combined into clusters.
First, a little background. Scientists have long noticed that our galaxy is moving at high speed in a certain direction, presumably under the influence of the gravitational forces of some massive cluster of objects. It was decided to conditionally call this cluster the “Great Attractor”. However, it was not possible to examine this region for a long time due to the fact that it was hidden behind the plane of the Milky Way. Only with the advent of X-ray telescopes were astronomers able to study the location of the Great Attractor. It turned out that there are much fewer galaxies there, which means much less mass to create the necessary gravitational forces to attract the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. Scientists began to peer further. And at a distance of 500-600 million light years from Earth, they found a supermassive structure in the region of the Shapley Supercluster, which is the most massive of the 220 known superclusters of galaxies in the observable universe. It contains about 10,000 times the mass of the Milky Way and 4 times the mass observed in the Great Attractor region. However, even this finding cannot fully explain the movement of the Milky Way. So, probably, the data of scientists is still not complete. An important role is also played by the incompletely studied distribution of dark matter (the center of gravity of its clusters may not coincide with the center of gravity of the local supercluster), which determines the large-scale structure of the Universe.
In any case, reading such figures, it is already difficult to say that man is a big creature, right? But even these meanings will seem childish to you after the end of this paragraph. The fact is that in space there are such formations as voids (from the English void - “emptiness”). These are vast areas between galactic filaments in which there are no or almost no galaxies and clusters, that is, relatively empty areas of space. Scientists believe that voids make up up to 50% of the volume of the Universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter surrounding them. The largest such object recorded by mankind is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. The dimensions of Supervoid Eridani are 1.8 by 3 billion light years. According to some physicists, such relic cold spots may be a reflection of another universe, caused by quantum entanglement between universes.
At the same time, not only empty spaces are huge in the Universe, but also supermassive clusters filled with light. Discovered in 2012, the Huge-LQG Huge Quasar Group, U1.27, is the largest cluster and contains 73 quasars. The diameter of this object is 4 billion light years. If that tells you anything, it's approximately 38 trillion kilometers. This cluster is one of the largest structures in the observable Universe. 5 billion light years. This is exactly the diameter of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring (Giant GRB Ring). Astronomers studying gamma-ray bursts (huge bursts of energy that result from the death of massive stars) discovered a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from Earth, that formed this structure. The “ring” itself is just a term that describes the visual representation of this phenomenon when observed from Earth. Most likely, the giant gamma ring is a projection of a certain sphere around which gamma radiation emissions occurred over a relatively short period of time (about 250 million years). Now try to relax a little, because we are approaching the most incredible object, so huge that even supervoids seem small against its background.
The largest structural object in the Universe was discovered by astronomers while observing gamma radiation and received one of the most poetic names: The Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. The most interesting thing is that the object received this name thanks to a Filipino teenager who simply entered it into Wikipedia immediately after the news about the discovery of the “wall” in November 2013. The Great Wall of Hercules - Corona Borealis is a galactic filament or wall consisting of groups of galaxies connected by gravity, measuring 10 billion light years in its greatest direction. In fact, this structure occupies about 10% of the visible Universe. Its discovery completely crossed out the existing cosmological principle of the homogeneity of the Universe. This is the basic position of modern cosmology, according to which each observer at the same moment in time, regardless of the place and direction of observation, discovers on average the same picture in the Universe. The scale over which homogeneity should appear is 250-300 million light years. After discovering a huge group of quasars measuring 4 billion light years, which is 13.5 times larger than the indicated value, scientists became wary. However, the existence of the Great Wall of Hercules – Corona Nord, which is larger than the established scale by more than 30 times, did call the cosmological principle into question. In addition, we see this wall as it was about 10 billion years ago, that is, 3.79 billion years after Big Bang. The presence of such a huge and massive structure on such early stage impossible, based on the existing model of the formation of the Universe. This means that scientists still know nothing about the world in which we live.
Although the Great Wall of Hercules - Corona Borealis is the largest structural object in the Universe, our article is not yet complete. In astronomy there is such a thing as the Cosmic Web. It is believed that all the largest structures, such as filaments, voids, superclusters, walls, and so on, form a single structure, so to speak, the “skeleton of the Universe.” In 2014, the work of researchers was published who managed to observe a thread of the cosmic web at a large cosmological distance, “illuminated” by a quasar. That is, the light emitted black hole, “heated up” the matter of the thread and made it glow. The web turned out to be approximately ten times more massive than theoretically expected, and explanations this fact could not be found. It is believed that the threads of the Cosmic Web are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies.
But you and I will most likely never know whether there are larger objects in the Universe, because people cannot look beyond the boundaries of the observable Universe. At this point, the comoving distance (the distance that does not change over time due to the expansion of space) to the most distant observable object (the surface of the last scattering of the CMB) is approximately 14 billion parsecs or 46 billion light years. Therefore, in fact, the observable Universe for humanity is a ball with a center in the Solar System, the diameter of which is approximately 93 billion light years.
If we draw a rough analogy, then our planet is just one atom of a small cog in the chair of a tanker floating in the ocean. So, the Earth is a small planet in the solar system, which, in turn, is part of the Milky Way. Further, our galaxy, together with the Andromeda galaxy and the Triangulum galaxy, form the Local Group of galaxies. More than 100 groups and clusters of galaxies are part of the Virgo Supercluster, which is part of the wall or complex of the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex. All this is theoretically connected by the Cosmic Web and, together with the cosmic voids, makes up the Universe we observe.
The Universe around us is huge and there are a lot of huge things in it. Planets, stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies are a series that can be continued in the direction of increasing size and mass, and at each point in this series you can find your own record holder.
Here you will learn about some of the record holders in various cosmic "categories", each of which is a demonstration of the universe's ability to produce objects of incredible size and magnificence.
Largest exoplanet: GQ Lupi b
For some time after the discovery of GQ Lupi b in 2005, astronomers did not know what exactly this object actually was. It revolves around a huge young star in an orbit whose diameter is two and a half times the distance from the Sun to Pluto. At first, scientists assumed that it was a brown dwarf, which is a small “unlit” star. But subsequent observations showed that GQ Lupi b is a planet with a diameter 3.5 times the diameter of Jupiter. And this makes GQ Lupi b the largest exoplanet, known to people to date.
The most big star: UY Scuti
UY Scuti is a hypergiant star with a radius 1,700 times the radius of the Sun, making it the largest star in the Universe we have studied. If the star UY Scuti were at the center of the solar system, its boundary would pass somewhere beyond the orbit of Jupiter, and streams of gas and dust erupted from the surface would extend beyond the orbit of Pluto to a distance exceeding the distance from the Earth to the Sun by 400 times.
Largest nebula: Tarantula Nebula
The Tarantula Nebula is the largest known nebula and the region where the most active formation of young stars occurs. The nebula extends over 1,800 light-years at its longest extent. This object, also known as 30 Doradus, is located 170 thousand light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that is a satellite of the Milky Way.
Largest Empty Space: Eridani Supervoid
In 2004, astronomers noticed a huge empty space in maps based on data collected by the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) satellite, which measured the microwave background (relict cosmic radiation from the Big Bang) with high sensitivity and resolution. This void spans an area of 1.8 billion light years, and its space is completely devoid of stars, gas, dust and, it seems, even dark matter.
Largest galaxy: IC 1101
The size of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is approximately 100 thousand light years, which is fairly average among all spiral galaxies. And the largest known galaxy, 1101 IC, is 50 times larger and 2 thousand times more massive than the Milky Way. The size of the galaxy 1101 IC is 5.5 million light years, and if it is placed in the place of the Milky Way, then its edge will reach our nearest neighbor on this scale, the Andromeda galaxy.
Biggest black hole: TON 618
Supermassive black holes located in the central regions large galaxies, can have a mass that exceeds the mass of the Sun by many millions of times. But the largest black hole, TON 618, has a mass greater than the mass of the Sun by 66 billion times. This black hole appeared in the Universe in the very early period of its existence, and now it powers one of the brightest quasars, emitting an insane amount of energy into space in the form of radiation of various types.
The largest galactic bubbles: Fermi Bubbles
In 2010, astronomers working with space telescope Fermi, discovered colossal structures that appeared at one time from the depths of the Milky Way. Visible only in certain wavelengths of light, these massive cosmic blobs span about 25,000 light-years, or a quarter the size of our galaxy. As scientists suggest, these bubbles are the consequences of a “very stormy feast” of our central black hole, its huge “energy burp.”
Largest object: protocluster SPT2349-56
In the very distant past, when the age of the Universe was a tenth of its current age, 14 galaxies approached each other and, under the influence of gravitational forces, began to collide, forming the protocluster SPT2349-56. The matter of all these galaxies is packed very densely in space; the volume occupied by a protocluster is only three times the size of the Milky Way. And in the very distant future, all this accumulation of matter will form a new solid supergalaxy, the mass of which will be 10 trillion solar masses. Once this happens, the central supergalaxy and its 50 satellite galaxies will form a giant object called a galaxy cluster.
Largest galaxy cluster: the Shapley supercluster
In the 1930s, this colossal structure was discovered by astronomer Harlow Shapley. It includes about 8 thousand galaxies, the total mass of which exceeds the mass of the Sun by 10 million billion times. The Shapley supercluster is the largest single structure in the known part of the Universe, according to the European Space Agency.
Largest supercluster: Laniakea supercluster
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a member of a huge cluster of galaxies known as the Laniakea supercluster. This cluster has no formal boundaries and astronomers estimate that it contains more than 100 thousand galaxies. The Laniakea supercluster extends over 520 million light years, and the total mass of all its matter exceeds the mass of the Sun by 100 million billion times.
Largest quasar cluster: Huge-LQG
Super-luminous space objects powered by black holes, known as quasars, are already huge in themselves and contain entire oceans of energy. But sometimes several quasars can combine into a cluster held together gravitational forces black holes. And the largest of these quasar clusters is Huge-LQG (Huge Large Quasar Group), which is 4 billion light years in size. It contains 73 quasars, the total mass of which exceeds the mass of the Sun by 6.1 quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) times.
The biggest thing in the Universe: Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall
By mapping the locations of gamma-ray bursts, the powerful cosmic explosions that end the life cycle of stars, astronomers have discovered what is the largest object in space - the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. The size of this object is 10 billion light years and contains billions of galaxies. This “Great Wall” was discovered in 2013, when astronomers discovered that virtually all gamma-ray bursts were concentrated in an area 10 billion light-years across in the direction of the constellation Hercules and Corona Borealis.
https://www.livescience.com/largest-objects-in-universe.html
This is a copy of the article located at December 17, 2018
The size of the Universe is unknown. He only excites our thoughts. But in the night sky there are plenty of objects that will surprise you with their scale. Let's take a closer look at them.
1. Supervoid (size – 1.8 billion light years)
Using the WMAP and Planck spacecraft, we were able to examine the cosmic microwave background radiation in great detail. The essence of the study is to understand the state of the world in the first moments of its “transparency.”
After the Big Bang for 380 thousand years. Space did not emit light. The temperature and density of the substance were so strong that radiation could not penetrate through them.
And only at the moment when the radiation received space to spread, it became possible to at least “see” something. The CMB is a remnant of this event. Everyone can see it on an old TV on an “empty” channel where there are ripples. A large percentage of these ripples are relict background.
With the help of the above-mentioned satellites, it became possible to see the early picture of the Universe, in particular, its temperature fluctuations. It turned out that they are insignificant and can be attributed to errors and random fluctuations. Despite this, the CMB map contains a lot of information.
With its help, astrophysicists were able to discover the coldest part of the Cosmos. It was called supervoid (supervoid). From our point of view, this is not completely nothing - there are many objects here. However, their number is one third less than in the surrounding space.
There are no clear reasons for the formation of such a huge spot.
2. Shapley Supercluster (8000 galaxies)
The total mass of this galaxy cluster is more than 10 million billion solar masses. Located in the constellation Centaurus.
For a long time, the object was out of sight, as it was hidden by the Milky Way. Using X-ray telescopes, we were able to see the attractor that attracts our and surrounding galaxies.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was discovered by the American astronomer H. Shapley, in whose honor it was named. Its attraction is so strong that our entire galaxy is attracted to it at a speed of 2.2 million km. per hour
3. Laniakea (size - 520 million light years)
It has long been determined that objects in space do not stand still: some scatter from each other, while others, on the contrary, come closer. Despite the enormous speed of these processes, we practically do not feel this visually, since cosmic distances are even greater.
The whole process will take several billion years.
4. Gamma ring (length – 5 billion light years)
The rays from this gamma source extend over 5 billion light. years. Using instruments, 9 consecutive gamma-ray bursts of colossal strength were recorded in a small area of the sky. If we could see this process with the naked eye, we would be able to see a red ring in the sky larger than the Moon.
The reason for this formation is not yet clear. There is an assumption that a group of galaxies could give birth to it. Quasars in these structures emitted huge jets of gamma rays at short intervals, which were captured.
5. Great Wall in Hercules and Northern Corona (size - 10 billion light years)
If you explore the space in the constellations Corona Borealis and Hercules, you will find an increased amount of gamma radiation.
Since these events occur frequently in this location, there appears to be some large object that is associated with them. It is estimated that its size could be up to 10 billion light years. This must be a cluster of galaxies and dark matter on a colossal scale.
As it turned out later, the size of the object covers not only these two constellations. But once the name stuck (thanks to a teenager who wrote about the object on Wikipedia), they kept it.
As you can see, Space is filled with quite strange formations. Some of them question the established hypotheses of the formation of the Universe. On the other hand, this allows us to look for answers to new questions in modern science.
Astronomers have the concept of “the largest object in the Universe.” This status is periodically assigned to one or another object, but their very presence is already a sensation. What “giants” are we talking about and where are they located? And which one is really “the best”? Here are the results of some of the latest astronomical discoveries.
Scientists have discovered the age of the Universe
Supervoid
This largest cold spot in the Universe is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. The extent of the spot is 1.8 billion light years. Although "void" means "emptiness" in English, this name for this region of space is not entirely fair. It's just that there are about 30 percent fewer galaxy clusters here than in the space around them.
Cold spots are filled with cosmic relic microwave radiation. But so far scientists are not entirely clear how they arise. One version says that these are traces of black holes of parallel universes. But another hypothesis claims that this is the result of the passage of protons through voids: passing through empty space, particles lose their energy... However, it is possible that there is no connection at all between cold spots and voids.
Superblob
In 2006, the title of the largest object in the Universe was awarded to a cosmic “bubble” (blob) with a length of 200 million light years, which is a giant accumulation of gas, dust and galaxies. It is curious that the galaxies in this cluster, which resembles a jellyfish in shape, are located four times more densely among themselves than usual in the Universe.
Clusters of galaxies and balls of gas inside a giant bubble are called Lyman Alpha bubbles. According to scientists, they formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
As for the superblob itself, it was likely formed when massive stars that existed since the dawn of space went supernova, releasing a gigantic volume of gas.
Perhaps the superblob is one of the most ancient space objects. So much gas accumulates in it that over time more and more new galaxies will begin to form from it.
Great Wall CfA2
It was discovered by American astrophysicist Margaret Joan Geller and John Peter Huchra while studying the redshift effect for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. CfA2 is 500 million light-years long and 16 million light-years wide. The name "Great Wall" is given to this space region because its shape resembles the Great Wall of China.
It is possible that the extent of CfA2 may be even greater - 750 million light years. But the exact parameters cannot yet be named, since the “wall” is partially located in the “avoidance zone” - it is covered by dense accumulations of gas and dust, which contributes to the distortion of optical wavelengths.
Great Wall of Sloan
It was discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the Universe. This object consists of several superclusters, total length which is 1.4 billion light years away.
Although, according to cosmological principles, objects larger than 1.2 billion light years cannot exist in the Universe, the presence of Sloan's Great Wall completely refutes this theory.
By the way, some of the clusters that make up the Great Wall of Sloan have very interesting characteristics. So, one of them has a core of galaxies, which from the outside looks like giant antennae. Inside the other there is a process of close interaction and merging of galaxies.
Giant gamma ring
The giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is currently considered the second largest object in the Universe. Its extent is 5 billion light years.
The object was discovered like this. While studying gamma-ray bursts produced by the death of massive stars, astronomers noticed a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were located at the same distance from Earth. They formed a ring in the sky that was 70 times the diameter of the full Moon.
It was hypothesized that the gamma ring may be a projection of a certain sphere around which all bursts of gamma radiation occurred in a relatively short period of time - about 250 million years.
But what could create such a sphere? One theory says that galaxies cluster around regions with high concentrations of dark matter. But in fact, the exact reason for the formation of such structures remains unknown.
