Intriguingly, the two structures are at the same distance from Earth, near the constellations of Boötes the Herdsman, raising the possibility that they are part of a connected cosmological system.
Not only that, but they look suspiciously concentric when plotted out on the sky. I know that's jumping pretty far out there into speculation land, but it'd really blow our theories a new one if there are patterns in the cosmos this large. Neat stuff.
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations article I found that did a good job of helping to explain just how vast these cosmic structures may be.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“From current cosmological theories we didn’t think structures on this scale were possible,” said Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire, who led the analysis.
Intriguingly, the two structures are at the same distance from Earth, near the constellations of Boötes the Herdsman, raising the possibility that they are part of a connected cosmological system.
The Big Ring was discovered by analysing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a catalogue of distant quasars.
The structure appears as an almost perfect ring on the sky, but further analysis revealed it has more of a coil shape, like a corkscrew, which is aligned face-on with Earth.
Another explanation is the existence of cosmic strings, hypothetical “defects” in the fabric of the universe that could cause matter to clump along large-scale faultlines.
Wagner said it was possible to accommodate the Big Ring within the cosmological principle, depending on how its limits are defined, but that the more of these outlier, large-scale structures that are discovered, the less statistically plausible this view becomes.
The original article contains 594 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Wild. Truly wild.
Dyson Sphere Program Vibes.
Or hyperspace bypass.
Can someone do a TLDR? I'm trying not to say aliens.
Flash forward to 2027: Alexia Lopez announces the discovery of the Ginormous Donut.