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.
