Astronomers have spotted what is likely the “largest spinning object” ever discovered, and its rotation could hold important clues about how galaxies develop.
The whirling structure, located 140 million light-years from Earth, is a long, threadlike string of gas that’s about 5.5 million light-years long and 117,000 light-years wide — wider than our Milky Way galaxy. The cosmic filament has 14 hydrogen-rich galaxies linked to it in a chain, like charms on a bracelet. These galaxies were what gave away the filament’s existence, the researchers explained in a paper published today (Dec. 3) in the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
After taking measurements, the researchers found that the filament itself appears to be rotating at around 68 miles per second (110 kilometers per second). What’s more, the galaxies around it are rotating as well — most in the same direction as the gaseous thread. This suggests that structures like this one may play a key role in galaxy formation by influencing the speed and direction of a star cluster’s spin.
The team suspects that similar rotating filaments will be discovered in the near future as researchers continue to ever-deeper reaches of the cosmos with next generation telescopes. Many such filaments link to each other in a vast cosmic web that funnels matter throughout the universe, forming large, interlinked clusters of galaxies.
This observation was collected as part of the MIGHTEE (MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration) survey, which is spearheaded by Oxford physicist Matt Jarvis and is currently ongoing. Future MIGHTEE data may shed further light on the filament’s behavior or facilitate the discovery of other rotating cosmic threads. The find may also help to inform forthcoming surveys from new instruments, like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
“I think it’s really helping us understand the universe,” Tudorache said.
