back to article Unbelievably vast quasar cluster forces universe-sized rethink

It’s there, but it shouldn’t be: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has found a quasar cluster so large that it demands a re-assessment of theories about the universe. The problem with the Large Quasar Group is this: it’s too big. One of the assumptions astronomers draw from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is that at the …

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  1. ~mico

    Space is big.

    You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

    (c) Douglas Adams

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Space is big.

      OK Douglas, isn't it time you stopped being dead for tax reasons like your friend Hotblack Desiato?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Space is big.

        Mr Desiato is apparently back amongst the living, and is currently working as an expensive London estate agent.... or should I say "residential consultant". How art the mighty fallen, etc.

        1. Allan George Dyer

          Re: Space is big.

          So he has returned to his original profession, though apparently not his partnership with Hotblack.

        2. Martin Budden Silver badge

          Re: Space is big.

          Adams named the character after the business.

  2. SleepGuy

    Buses, huh?

    Well, assuming the standard London double-decker bus length of 8.4 m, then the Milky Way would measure 112,627,743,721,200,000,000 buses across! I suppose we could round this up to 113 sextillion buses...besides, sextillion has a certain ring to it! As far as the Virgo Cluster, it's 113 septillion buses across.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Re: Buses, huh?

      Wouldn't a line of busses that long be unstable due to self-gravity? Before you can finish placing them, they'd be getting all kinky...

      1. Fat Bob

        Re: Buses, huh?

        ...that would mean they'd all turn up at once.

        1. Chemist
          Joke

          Re: Buses, huh?

          "...that would mean they'd all turn up at once."

          IF by once you mean over >4 billion years then yes

    2. Rukario
      Joke

      Re: Buses, huh?

      What's that in BoJo buses?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Buses, huh?

      Or 113 exabusses.

    4. Christoph

      Re: Buses, huh?

      You wait ages for one bus, and then ...

      1. Silverburn

        Re: Buses, huh?

        Just be thankful it's not bendy buses. You'd need a bit less of them, but half of them would be on fire.

        1. Dark Horse
          Joke

          Re: Buses, huh?

          So THAT'S how starts are born!

        2. Martin Budden Silver badge
          Headmaster

          @Silverburn

          less ≠ fewer

    5. Ian Yates
      Joke

      Re: Buses, huh?

      My God... it's full of buses!

    6. Tim 11

      Re: Buses, huh?

      I think you'll find it's about the same size as Wales.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    "astrophysical models have suggested that 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure."

    There's a joke in there somewhere, but damned if I can make it happen.

    1. Paul_Murphy
      Joke

      How about ....

      Yo mamma so fat they have to re-write the laws of physics.

      Yo mamma so fat the ran out of busses to compare her with.

      and so on.

      1. Silverburn
        Happy

        Re: How about ....

        Yo mamma so fat even Einstein said "daaayyyym"

        1. James 36
          Coat

          Re: How about ....

          yo momma's so fat she is uniform in every direction

          1. BorkedAgain
            Thumb Up

            Re: How about ....

            Dammit, I came on here to say " Yo momma's so fat she demands a re-assessment of theories about the universe." thinking I was being all hip and street and original, and you guys got there first with funnier variations.

            You guys... :)

      2. hi_robb
        Joke

        Re: How about ....

        Your mamma's so fat she's the source of the unvierse's gravity.

        I do though still prefer the classic...

        Your mamma's so fat, when she fell down the stairs everyone thought Eastenders was coming on.

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Can't make sense of this article

    73 quasars distributed over four billion light years is not particularly dense. As is commonly supposed, a quasar is a black holse swallowing up stuff in the center of forming galaxies. If you see 73, you are looking down the axis of rotation of those holes in 73 cases. Doesn't sound a particularly surprising surprise, there must be tens of thousands of galaxies over 4 billion lys

    1. Crisp
      Boffin

      Re: Can't make sense of this article

      It doesn't have to be dense. It just has to be gravitationally bound.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Can't make sense of this article

        It doesn't say anything about gravitationally bound or not.

        Looks more like the expectation is that the universe's map should be greyish overall but now there is wrinkly black smudge in the corner. A fractal appears?

        1. Great Bu

          Re: Can't make sense of this article

          The point of the original assumption that this observation makes less likely was that mathematically for the universe to appear to be the same for all observers then the largest such 'smudge' would be 1.2 billion light years, anything bigger would produce a big enough difference in the 'texture' of the universe that it would look different to different observers.

          So whilst there are random variations in the appearance of the universe, these variations reach the level of non-randomness once they grow to more than the 1.2 billion light year size - it's like looking at the random fuzz on a TV showing just static, how many black pixels would need to cluster together before you started thinking they were not random after all ? This cluster is a big block of black pixels together which suggests that either it's not random or the assumption is wrong.

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

            Re: Can't make sense of this article

            Well, someone has already been editing the article:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_cosmology

          2. The First Dave
            Boffin

            Re: Can't make sense of this article

            My first thought about all this was that it is stupid to assume that something random is going to be even on any scale - nothing that is _truly_ random actually looks like it is.

            1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

              Re: Can't make sense of this article

              But that is what randomness means (and there rather good definitions based on Kolmogorov complexity) - it is very very unlikely to yield anything beyond grayness.

              That's why there are not many voices from the dead in white noise.

              1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
                Boffin

                Re: Can't make sense of this article

                Finally a good explanation:

                You, Andromeda, And The Largest Structure In The Universe

        2. ~mico
          Boffin

          Re: A fractal appears

          If a fractal indeed appears, it will be a scary discovery. I'm no Ph.D., but I think it may hint at some underlying properties of spacetime itself, namely, it not being 3-dimensional, perhaps even of non-integer dimension.

  6. jai

    That Einstein, eh? Always making assumptions to cut corners and avoid the hard work.

    Well you know what they about assumptions? it makes an ass out of you and... and... mptions?

  7. Cloud & rain model of the Universe structure

    This is just fine with Car model.

    "With its 73 members spanning four billion light years, the Large Quasar Group is a theoretical inconvenience, because astrophysical models have suggested that 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure."

    This is always fine with structure of the Universe; "Cloud & rain model". This observation gives advantages to "Car model" against "The Big bang theory".

  8. I like noodles
    WTF?

    1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

    I refuse to believe that there *is* an upper limit for the size of a structure.

    1. Tom_

      Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

      It depends on your compiler.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

      Similarly, I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

      Sure it may be the speed at which we can perceive anything, but it always seemed a bit arbitrary. I don't have a degree in physics, but I would imagine that travelling at that speed, to an observer you'd be past before they see you pass, but this to me is no different from Concorde - you see it pass before you hear it.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Up

          Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

          @HolyFreakinGhost

          Excellent response that answers my lay-understanding of physics.

          Have an upvote!

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

          Re: 1.2 billion light years was the upper limit for the size of a structure

          Ultimately whether we like it or not, the point of physics is to make predictions and the predictions that come out of special relativity, both on a quantum and a classical level, match reality to whatever accuracy we can push it. That then implies that any theory we come up with to replace special relativity has to mimic it in these regimes so closely as to be indistinguishable.

          World class summation IMHO :). Have an upvote!

      2. Martin
        Headmaster

        ....I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

        I've recommended this here before, but Relativity and Common Sense (by Hermann Bondi) is a good introduction from first principles to the strange things that happen at high speeds. It makes no assumptions about your knowledge - you just need to know a bit of obvious classical mechanics and be able to follow some simple algebra and diagrams.

        Excellent book. Convinced me when I was a 6th former and thought as you did. My Physics teacher recommended it to me.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Holmes

          Re: ....I have always refused to accept the speed of light as the upper limit of speed.

          "the foundations of special relativity look rather absurd -- they basically state, as an input assumption, that all observers will measure light travelling at the speed of light *regardless of their own speed*. So when we're travelling towards the Sun and travelling away from it, we measure exactly the same speed. Absurd."

          Apparently not.

          Mitch Feigenbaum thinks this is all a straightforward extension of Galilean thought... this is a paper I have yet to read though.

          http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1234

          "We determine the Lorentz transformations and the kinematic content and dynamical framework of special relativity as purely an extension of Galileo's thoughts. No reference to light is ever required: The theories of relativity are logically independent of any properties of light. The thoughts of Galileo are fully realized in a system of Lorentz transformations with a parameter 1/c^2, some undetermined, universal constant of nature; and are realizable in no other. Isotropy of space plays a deep and pivotal role in all of this, since here three-dimensional space appears at first blush, and persists until the conclusion: Relativity can never correctly be fully developed in just one spatial dimension."

          See also

          Math in the News

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  9. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Galaxies and statistics

    An ensemble of universes would on average be isotropic.

  10. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    The register might not be about to publish an "Einstein Wrong" headline, but I'll bet there are plenty of publications out there who will...

  11. Somerset John
    WTF?

    Group...........what group?

    What makes this a group?

    4 billion light years is a significant fraction of the size of the entire known universe. Given that Quasars are active galactic nuclei (I assume this is the case on current evidence) there are likely millions, if not billions, of them. 73 is a pretty insignificant number compared to the total, so insignificant that whatever common characteristic leads observers to consider them a group may be no more than coincidence.

    I would not be terribly surprised if this went the way of the FTL neutrino.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Group...........what group?

      If you measure it in London buses, would it not be a TfL neutrino?

  12. Chandy

    crowded

    Wait a minute. There's something out there that's nearly 30% the width of the universe? I had always pictured the universe to be so big that it meant that everything in it, no matter its size, would be relatively small in comparison.. Methinks that there will be an udpating at some point soon of the 13.7 billion light years current estimate to something substantially bigger. I'm going for at least 500 billion light years.

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      2. Chandy

        Re: crowded

        My mistake. Okay, so it's 93 billion light years wide, so about 5%. Still way too big.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: crowded

      Where did 30% come from? Not that it's wrong: if you apply Benford's Law to it this could be as much as 30.1% or as little as 4.6% of the universe. it just depends on how many Quasar groups of that size they find.

      I should also note that the article says the limit was derived from a computer model. We all know computer models are bastions of accuracy don't we?

    3. I think so I am?
      Meh

      Re: crowded

      Maybe missed that space can expand faster than the speed of light?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: crowded

      "There's something out there that's nearly 30% the width of the universe?"

      To have a width you need an edge. What there is at the edge of the universe, and what's outside it?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "to have width you need an edge..."

        Not true.

        Drop a dimension and imagine the universe is the surface of a balloon. It can expand (meaning the surface becomes larger) and can be said to have a 'width' - i.e. the circumference of the balloon. It does not follow that the surface of the ballon must have an 'edge'. Not saying this is an accurate representation, just demonstrating the false initail assumption, and hence the moot question that followed it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

          "Drop a dimension and imagine the universe is the surface of a balloon"

          Alright, you've got me on that one. But, wilfully taking your analogy as factual, now the question from Dullard Towers metamorphasises (or som't like that) into an equally profound couple of questions: What's inside the balloon? And is the stuff outside the balloon the same or different to the stuff on the inside?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

            ...and what happens when the knot at the end comes undone and the universe flies around the room making a 'pbltltttbhbbbttttt!' sound?

            1. pixl97
              Boffin

              Re: "to have width you need an edge..."

              >...and what happens when the knot at the end comes undone and the universe flies around the room making a 'pbltltttbhbbbttttt!' sound?

              Quite possibly.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe#Vacuum_metastability_event

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

    5. pixl97
      Boffin

      Re: crowded

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

      'The region visible from Earth (the observable Universe) is a sphere with a radius of about 47 billion light years,['

      Perhaps when talking about the size of the universe, one should say 'observable universe', because the unobservable universe is much bigger, possible infinite.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoving_distance

      Comoving distance makes trying to figure out where something would be now interesting, since 'the universe' is expanding equally (apparently) in all directions.

  13. jonfr
    Boffin

    Quasar and a black hole

    Quasar and a black hole are not the same thing.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

    Both have strong gravity so getting close is not recommend. Along with deadly radiation and other such things.

    While I do not know about the rest of what is explained in this news article (universe uniformity). This quasar structure is proving some ideas about the universe are wrong and needs to be re-evaluated and changed.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Quasar and a black hole

      Well, the assumption is that a Quasar is powered by a black hole. So there.

  14. envmod

    it's got to hold at least

    4 London Buses. At least....maybe even 5.

  15. Rob Moss
    WTF?

    London buses

    So this quasar cluster is 4.5 x 10^24 London buses across? That's quite big. Four and a half yottabuses. Anything much bigger and we'll need a new SI prefix.

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Re: London buses

      Nah, it's too big for buses. Too big for Nelson's Columns and Waless too.

  16. The Original Cactus
    Paris Hilton

    Another dumb question from a layman

    In what ways might a large structure such as, oh lets say a four billion light-year wide group of quasars, look different to another observer?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Another dumb question from a layman

      A simple guess s that there would seem to be a lot more mass (several percent of the observable mass) in the direction of the cluster. It's like waking up in your home and finding all the furniture stacked against the eastern wall. Something is going ON here. Maybe we are in a Spielberg horror movie.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's the length of an infinite number of buses all travelling at the speed of light.

    1. Stratman

      Travelling at the speed of tectonic drift would be an improvement......

  18. Moonshine
    Stop

    ...and how many times the size of Wales?

    Please can we have all future measurements in "Wales", please. Use of the imperial "bus" measure is non-standard and frankly insulting to anyone under the age of 40. I was a child of the 70s and by then the "wales" was already established in geography classes when measuring rainforests. Anyone knows these days that 1 hectare = 5 nanoWales.

  19. Stratman

    Is it possible...

    .... that the universe is not old enough to be homogeneous? That it's lumpy because it's still sorting itself out?

    Give it another squillion years and it'll be fine.

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      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Is it possible...

        "The things I tell you will not be wrong"

        For those haven't seen it yet: Large-Scale Simulation, a bit old now.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is it possible...

        But the ( current ) standard model of the universe has the elephant-in-the-room assumption that everything we currently see flying apart was ejected from some implausibly dense signularity, without accounting for how that singularity existed.

        It is perfectly possible that the universe if far larger and far older than we can currently determine, and the singularity that exploded as "The Big Bang" was formed from the gravitational collapse of simply a section of cosmos that eventually reached an explosive instability.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

  20. Terry 6 Silver badge
    Coat

    @ROB

    We'll certainly need a bigger depot.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, I make it 25,167,320,000,000,000,000 London Buses

    1. Forget It
      Meh

      what's the betting all those buses come along at once . . .

  22. WalterAlter
    FAIL

    Halton Arp Anyone?

    Halton Arp, Edwin Hubbel's chief assistant and at one time considered one of the top 10 astronomer in the world, comes to a different conclusion about quasars and intrinsic red shift. He has a web site that is only a mouse click away. Amazon has his books which are also similarly aligned to the mouse click metric. Start with his "Seeing Red" then get back to me about all this Black Hole crap.

    "Yes, angel, science can be just as stupid as any politician, economist or cleric"

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Halton Arp Anyone?

      Arp is ancient history now. Pretty much shot down in flames by advances in observational capabilities. File under "ideas that didn't survive the test of time".

      NEXT!

      1. WalterAlter
        Megaphone

        Re: Halton Arp Anyone?

        >>Arp is ancient history now. Pretty much shot down in flames by advances in observational capabilities. File under "ideas that didn't survive the test of time".

        Shriek, shriek, shriek. Anything but read the book, eh?

  23. gromm
    Thumb Up

    Buses.

    I had to laugh at your bus comparison. It's pretty standard for regular news outlets to measure sizes, distances, and weights in "human" terms, even if the number of buses, elephants, or football pitches required gets stupidly large.

    And then there's astronomical measurements. You might as well just toss any human measurement out the window, because they're all stupidly big. As one astronomer pointed out, if you were to scale down the galaxy to where a star is the size of a grain of sand, you could scatter three grains of sand randomly about in a football stadium and that space would be more densely populated with "stars" than our neck of the galaxy is.

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