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10 largest objects in the universe. Impossible space objects, but they exist in reality

27 October 2015, 15:38

Ancient pyramids, the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - just looking at these huge objects will take your breath away. And at the same time, compared to some objects in the universe, they differ in microscopic size.

Largest asteroid

Today, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes called a "dwarf planet."

The most big planet

The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. The planet, called TrES-4, orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.

The planet TrES-4 itself is a ball that consists primarily of hydrogen. Its dimensions are 20 times greater than the size of the Earth. Researchers claim that the diameter of the discovered planet is almost 2 times (more precisely 1.7) larger than the diameter of Jupiter (this is the largest planet solar system). The temperature of TrES-4 is about 1260 degrees Celsius.

The largest black hole

In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, given their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, whose mass is 17 billion times (!) greater than the mass of the Sun. This is a huge black hole at the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object that is larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.

Largest galaxy

The so-called “super galaxies” are several galaxies merged together and located in galactic “clusters”, clusters of galaxies. The largest of these “super galaxies” is IC1101, which is 60 times more galaxy where our solar system is located. The extent of IC1101 is 6 million light years. For comparison, the length of the Milky Way is only 100 thousand light years.

The largest star in the Universe

VY Canis Major- the largest known star and one of the brightest stars in the sky. This is a red hypergiant, which is located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is approximately 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is approximately 3 billion kilometers.

Huge deposits of water

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reserves of water ever found in the Universe. The giant cloud, which is about 12 billion years old, contains 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

A cloud of gaseous water surrounds a supermassive black hole, which is located 12 billion light years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost all of its existence, the researchers said.

Largest galaxy cluster

El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth, so what we see today is just its early stages. According to researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits more radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further away.

The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The study authors suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical images, scientists estimate that 1 percent of the cluster's total mass is stars, and the rest is hot gas that fills the space between the stars. This ratio of stars to gas is similar to that in other massive clusters.

Supervoid

Just recently, scientists discovered the largest cold spot in the Universe (at least known science Universe). It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With a length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists because they could not even imagine that such an object could actually exist.

Despite the presence of the word “void” in the name (from English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer galaxy clusters than the surrounding space. According to scientists, voids make up up to 50 percent 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. What makes this void interesting are two things: its incredible size and its relationship to the mysterious WMAP cold spot.

Superblob

Each of the three “tentacles” of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times more densely packed together than is normal in the Universe. The cluster of galaxies and balls of gas inside this bubble are called Liman-Alpha bubbles. These objects are believed to have formed approximately 2 billion years after big bang and are true relics ancient universe.

Shapley Supercluster

For many years, scientists have believed that our galaxy Milky Way At a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour, it is attracted through the Universe to the constellation Centaurus. Astronomers theorize that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with such a gravitational force that it is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, to find out what kind of object this is, scientists for a long time They couldn't because this object is located beyond the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), a region of the sky near the plane of the Milky Way where the absorption of light by interstellar dust is so great that it is impossible to see what lies beyond it.

Once scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the “great cosmic magnet” was a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.

The Shapley supercluster is a supermassive cluster of galaxies. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being attracted by this supercluster.

Laniakea Supercluster

Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. Regions of space where these clusters are more densely located among themselves are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the Universe, but recently new way mapping of local space, which shed light on data previously unknown to astronomy.

The new principle of mapping local space and the galaxies in it is based not so much on calculating the physical location of an object, but on measuring the gravitational influence it exerts.

The first results of studying our local galaxies using a new research method have already been obtained. Scientists, based on the boundaries of the gravitational flow, note a new supercluster. The importance of this research is that it will allow us to better understand where our place is in the Universe. It was previously thought that the Milky Way was located inside the Virgo Supercluster, but a new research method shows that this region is just an arm of the even larger Laniakea Supercluster - one of the largest objects in the Universe. It extends over 520 million light years, and somewhere within it we are.

Great Wall Sloan

The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the Universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a giant galactic filament, consisting of several superclusters spread across the Universe like the tentacles of a giant octopus. With a length of 1.4 billion light years, the "wall" was once considered the largest object in the Universe.

The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as studied as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together from the outside look like giant tendrils. Another supercluster has very high level interaction of galaxies, many of which are now undergoing a period of merger.

Huge-LQG7 Quasar Group

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the centers of quasars are supermassive black holes that pull surrounding matter towards themselves. This results in enormous radiation, 1000 times more powerful than all the stars within the galaxy. Currently, the third largest object in the Universe is the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over more than 4 billion light years. Scientists believe that this massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the main predecessors and sources of the largest objects in the Universe, such as, for example, the Great Wall of Sloan.

Giant gamma ring

Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Crown

The largest object in the Universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of gamma-ray observations. This object, called the Great Wall of Hercules - Corona Borealis, extends over 10 billion light years, making it twice the size of the Giant Gamma-ray Ring. Because the brightest gamma-ray bursts come from larger stars, usually located in regions of space that contain more matter, astronomers metaphorically view each gamma-ray burst as a needle pricking something larger. When scientists discovered that a region of space in the direction of the constellations Hercules and Corona Borealis was experiencing excessive bursts of gamma rays, they determined that there was an astronomical object there, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.

Cosmic web

Scientists believe that the expansion of the Universe does not occur randomly. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of space are organized into one incredibly sized structure, reminiscent of thread-like connections that unite dense regions with each other. These threads are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.

According to scientists, the web was formed at very early stages of the history of the Universe. The early stage of the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the Universe. It is believed that the “threads” of this web played big role in the evolution of the Universe, thanks to which this evolution accelerated. Galaxies located inside these filaments have a significantly higher rate of star formation. In addition, these filaments are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. After their formation in these filaments, galaxies move towards galaxy clusters, where they eventually die over time.

Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web actually is. Moreover, they even discovered its presence in the radiation of the distant quasar they studied. Quasars are known to be the brightest objects in the Universe. The light from one of them went straight to one of the filaments, which heated the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists drew threads between other galaxies, thereby creating a picture of the “skeleton of the cosmos.”

Thanks to the rapid development of technology, astronomers are making more and more interesting and incredible discoveries in the Universe. For example, the title of “the largest object in the Universe” passes from one discovery to another almost every year. Some discovered objects are so huge that they baffle even the best scientists on our planet with their existence. Let's talk about the ten biggest ones.

Relatively recently, scientists discovered the largest cold spot in the Universe. It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With a length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot has baffled scientists. They had no idea that objects of this size could exist.

Superblob

In 2006, the discovery of a mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them) received the title of the largest object in the Universe. True, he did not retain this title for long. This bubble, 200 million light years across, is a giant collection of gas, dust and galaxies. With some caveats, this object looks like a giant green jellyfish. The object was discovered by Japanese astronomers while studying one of the regions of space known for the presence of a huge volume of cosmic gas.

Each of the three “tentacles” of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser among themselves than usual in the Universe. Clusters of galaxies and balls of gas inside this bubble are called Lyman-Alpha bubbles. It is believed that these objects began to appear approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are true relics of the ancient Universe. Scientists suggest that the bubble in question formed when massive stars that existed in the early days of the cosmos suddenly went supernova and ejected gigantic volumes of gas into space. The object is so massive that scientists believe it is, by and large, one of the first cosmic objects to form in the Universe. According to theories, over time, more and more new galaxies will form from the gas accumulated here.

Shapley Supercluster

For many years, scientists have believed that our galaxy is being pulled across the Universe at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour somewhere in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. Astronomers suggest that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with such a gravitational force that it is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, for a long time scientists could not find out what kind of object it was. This object is believed to be located beyond the so-called “zone of avoidance” (ZOA), an area in the sky obscured by the Milky Way galaxy.

However, over time it came to the rescue X-ray astronomy. Its development made it possible to look beyond the ZOA region and find out what exactly is the cause of such a strong gravitational attraction. True, what scientists saw put them in an even greater dead end. It turned out that beyond the ZOA region there is an ordinary cluster of galaxies. The size of this cluster did not correlate with the strength of the gravitational attraction exerted on our galaxy. But once scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that our galaxy was being pulled toward an even larger object. It turned out to be the Shapley Supercluster - the most massive supercluster of galaxies in the observable Universe.

The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies. Its mass is about 10,000 times that of the Milky Way.

Great Wall CfA2

Like most of the objects on this list, the Great Wall (also known as the CfA2 Great Wall) once also boasted the title of the largest known space object in the Universe. It was discovered by American astrophysicist Margaret Joan Geller and John Peter Hunra while studying the redshift effect for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. According to scientists, its length is 500 million light years, width 300 million, and thickness 15 million light years.

The exact dimensions of the Great Wall still remain a mystery to scientists. It may be much larger than thought, spanning 750 million light years. The problem in determining the exact dimensions lies in the location of this gigantic structure. As with the Shapley Supercluster, the Great Wall is partially obscured by an "avoidance zone."

In general, this “zone of avoidance” does not allow us to see about 20 percent of the observable (reachable for current telescopes) Universe. It is located inside the Milky Way and contains dense accumulations of gas and dust (as well as a high concentration of stars) that greatly distort observations. To look through the avoidance zone, astronomers have to use, for example, infrared telescopes, which allow them to penetrate another 10 percent of the avoidance zone. What infrared waves cannot penetrate, radio waves, as well as near-infrared waves and x-rays, can penetrate. However, the virtual inability to view such a large region of space is somewhat frustrating for scientists. The "Zone of Avoidance" may contain information that could fill gaps in our knowledge of space.

Laniakea Supercluster

Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. Regions of space where these clusters are more densely located among themselves are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the Universe, but recently a new way of mapping local space was invented. This made it possible to shed light on information that was previously unavailable.

The new principle of mapping local space and the galaxies located in it is based not on calculating the location of objects, but on observing the indicators of the gravitational influence exerted by objects. Thanks to the new method, the location of galaxies is determined and, based on this, a map of the distribution of gravity in the Universe is compiled. Compared to the old ones, the new method is more advanced because it allows astronomers not only to mark new objects in the visible universe, but also to find new objects in places where they had not been able to look before.

The first results of studying a local cluster of galaxies using a new method made it possible to detect a new supercluster. The importance of this research is that it will allow us to better understand where our place is in the Universe. It was previously thought that the Milky Way was located inside the Virgo Supercluster, but a new research method shows that this region is only part of the even larger Laniakea Supercluster - one of the largest objects in the Universe. It extends over 520 million light years, and somewhere within it we are.

Great Wall of Sloan

The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to identify the largest objects in the Universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a giant galactic filament consisting of several superclusters. They are like the tentacles of a giant octopus distributed in all directions of the Universe. With a length of 1.4 billion light years, the "wall" was once considered the largest object in the Universe.

The Sloan Great Wall itself is not as studied as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together from the outside look like giant tendrils. Inside another supercluster, there is a high gravitational interaction between galaxies - many of them are now undergoing a period of merger.

The presence of the “wall” and any other larger objects creates new questions about the mysteries of the Universe. Their existence contradicts a cosmological principle that theoretically limits how large objects in the universe can be. According to this principle, the laws of the Universe do not allow the existence of objects larger than 1.2 billion light years. However, objects like Sloan's Great Wall completely contradict this opinion.

Huge-LQG7 Quasar Group

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the centers of quasars are supermassive black holes that attract surrounding matter. This leads to a huge emission of radiation, the energy of which is 1000 times greater than the energy produced by all the stars inside the galaxy. Currently in third place among the largest structural objects in the Universe is the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over more than 4 billion light years. Scientists believe that such a massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the reasons for the appearance of the largest structural ones in the Universe, such as, for example, the Great Wall of Sloan.

The Huge-LQG group of quasars was discovered after analyzing the same data that led to the discovery of Sloan's Great Wall. Scientists determined its presence after mapping one of the regions of space using a special algorithm that measures the density of quasars in a certain area.

It should be noted that the very existence of Huge-LQG is still a matter of debate. Some scientists believe that this region of space actually represents a single group of quasars, while other scientists are confident that quasars within this region of space are located randomly and are not part of one group.

Giant gamma ring

Stretching over 5 billion light years, the Giant GRB Ring is the second largest object in the Universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. 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 the same distance from Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky 70 times larger than the diameter of the full Moon. Considering that gamma ray bursts themselves are quite a rare occurrence, the chance that they will form a similar shape in the sky is 1 in 20,000. This allowed scientists to assume that they are witnessing one of the largest structural objects in the Universe.

The “ring” itself is just a term that describes the visual representation of this phenomenon when observed from Earth. According to one assumption, the giant gamma ring may be a projection of a certain sphere around which all gamma radiation emissions occurred in a relatively short period of time, about 250 million years. True, here the question arises about what kind of source could create such a sphere. One explanation involves the idea that galaxies may cluster in groups around a huge concentration dark matter. However, this is just a theory. Scientists still do not know how such structures are formed.

Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Crown

The largest structural object in the Universe was also discovered by astronomers while observing gamma rays. This object, called the Great Wall of Hercules - Corona Borealis, extends over 10 billion light years, making it twice the size of the Giant Gamma-ray Ring. Because the brightest gamma-ray bursts come from larger stars, usually located in regions of space that contain more matter, astronomers metaphorically view each gamma-ray burst as a needle pricking something larger. When scientists discovered that a region of space in the direction of the constellations Hercules and Corona Borealis was experiencing excessive bursts of gamma rays, they determined that there was an astronomical object there, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.

Interesting fact: the name “Great Wall Hercules - Northern Crown” was invented by a Filipino teenager who wrote it down in Wikipedia (anyone who doesn’t know can make edits to this electronic encyclopedia). Shortly after the news that astronomers had discovered a huge structure in the cosmic horizon, a corresponding article appeared on the pages of Wikipedia. Despite the fact that the invented name does not accurately describe this object (the wall covers several constellations at once, and not just two), the world Internet quickly got used to it. This may be the first time that Wikipedia has given a name to a discovered and scientifically interesting object.

Since the very existence of this “wall” also contradicts the cosmological principle, scientists have to revise some of their theories about how the Universe actually formed.

Cosmic web

Scientists believe that the expansion of the Universe does not occur randomly. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of space are organized into one structure of incredible size, reminiscent of thread-like connections that unite dense regions with each other. These threads are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.

According to scientists, the web was formed at very early stages of the history of the Universe. At first, the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that now exists in the Universe. It is believed that the “threads” of this web played a big role in the evolution of the Universe - they accelerated it. It is noted that galaxies that are located inside these filaments have a significantly higher rate of star formation. In addition, these filaments are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. After their formation within these filaments, galaxies move towards galaxy clusters, where they eventually die over time.

Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web actually is. While studying one of the distant quasars, researchers noted that its radiation affects one of the threads of the Cosmic Web. The quasar's light went straight to one of the filaments, which heated the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists were able to imagine the distribution of filaments between other galaxies, thereby creating a picture of the “skeleton of the cosmos.”

Review of the largest space objects and phenomena.

We with school years We know that the largest planet is Jupiter. It is he who is the leader in terms of the size of the planets in the solar system. In this article we will tell you what the largest planet and space object exists in the Universe.

What is the name of the largest planet in the Universe?

TrES-4- is a gas giant and the largest planet in the Universe. Oddly enough, this object was discovered only in 2006. This is a huge planet, many times the size of Jupiter. It revolves around a star, just like the Earth revolves around the sun. The planet is colored orange-brown, because the temperature on its surface is more than 1200 degrees. Therefore, there is no solid surface on it, it is basically a boiling mass consisting mainly of helium and hydrogen.

Due to the constant occurrence of chemical reactions, the planet is very hot and radiates heat. The strangest thing is the density of the planet, it is very high for such a mass. Therefore, scientists are not sure that it consists only of gas.

What is the name of the largest planet in the solar system?

One of the largest planets in the Universe is Jupiter. It is one of the giant planets that are predominantly gas. The composition is also very similar to the Sun, being mostly hydrogen. The planet's rotation speed is very high. Because of this, strong winds, which provoke the appearance of colored clouds. Due to the enormous size of the planet and the speed of its movement, it is characterized by strong magnetic field, which attracts many celestial bodies.

This is due to the large number of satellites on the planet. One of the largest is Ganymede. Despite this, in Lately Scientists became very interested in Jupiter’s satellite, Europa. They believe that the planet, which is covered with a crust of ice, has an ocean inside, with possible the simplest life. Which makes it possible to assume the existence of living beings.

The largest stars in the Universe

VY. Until recently, it was considered the largest star; it was discovered back in 1800. The size is approximately 1420 times the radius of the Sun. But at the same time the mass is only 40 times greater. This is due to the low density of the star. The most interesting thing is that over the past few centuries the star has been actively losing its size and mass. This is due to the occurrence of thermonuclear reactions on its surface. Thus, the result is a possible rapid explosion of a given star with the formation of a black hole or neutron star.
But in 2010, NASA's Space Shuttle discovered another huge star that lies beyond the solar system. She was given a name R136a1. This star is 250 times larger than the Sun and shines much brighter. If we compare how brightly the Sun shines, the glow of the star was similar to the radiance of the Sun and the Moon. Only in this case, the Sun will shine much less, and will look more like the Moon than a huge giant space object. This confirms that almost all stars age and lose their brightness. This is due to the presence on the surface of a huge amount of active gases that constantly enter into chemical reactions, break apart. Since its discovery, the star has lost a quarter of its mass, precisely due to chemical reactions.

The universe is not well understood. This is due to the fact that it is simply physically impossible to arrive at planets that are located at a distance of a huge number of light years. Therefore, scientists are studying these planets using modern equipment and telescopes.

VY Canis Majoris

Top 10 largest space objects and phenomena

There are a huge number of cosmic bodies and objects that surprise with their size. Below is the TOP 10 largest objects and phenomena located in space.

List:

- the largest planet in the solar system. Its volume is 70% of the total volume of the system itself. Moreover, more than 20% falls on the Sun, and 10% is distributed between other planets and objects. The most interesting thing is what's around it celestial body many satellites.
. We believe that the Sun is a huge star. In fact, it is nothing more than a yellow dwarf star. And our planet is only a small part of what revolves around this star. The sun is constantly decreasing. This occurs due to the fact that hydrogen is synthesized into helium during micro-explosions. The star is brightly colored and warms our planet through an exothermic reaction that releases heat.
Ours. Its size is 15 x 10 12 degrees kilometers. Consists of 1 star and 9 planets that move around this bright object along certain trajectories called orbits.
VY is a star located in the constellation Canis Major. It is a red supergiant, its size is the largest in the Universe. To put it into perspective, it is approximately 2000 times larger in diameter than our Sun and the entire system. The glow intensity is higher.

VY
Huge reserves of water. This is nothing more than a giant cloud containing a huge amount of water vapor inside. Their number is approximately 143 times greater than the volume of the Earth's oceans. Scientists nicknamed the object
The huge black hole NGC 4889. This hole is located at a great distance from our Earth. It is nothing more than a funnel-shaped abyss around which there are stars and planets. This phenomenon is located in the constellation Coma Berenices, its size is 12 times larger than our entire solar system.
it is nothing more than a spiral Galaxy, which consists of many stars around which planets and satellites can revolve. Accordingly, the Milky Way may contain a huge number of planets on which life is possible. Because there is a possibility that conditions exist that are favorable for the origin of life.
El Gordo. This is a huge cluster of galaxies that are distinguished by their bright glow. This is due to the fact that such a cluster consists of only 1% stars. The rest falls on the hot gas. Thanks to this, the glow occurs. It was from this bright light that scientists discovered this cluster. Researchers suggest that this object appeared as a result of the merger of two galaxies. The photo shows the glow of this merger.

El Gordo
Superblob. It is something like a huge space bubble, which is filled inside with stars, dust and planets. It is a cluster of galaxies. There is a hypothesis that it is from this gas that new galaxies are formed.
. It's something strange, like a labyrinth. This is precisely the cluster of all galaxies. Scientists believe that it is not formed by chance, but according to a certain pattern.

The Universe has been studied very little, so over time, new record holders may appear and will be called the largest objects.

VIDEO: The largest objects and phenomena in the Universe

This could be a galactic wall billions of light years from Earth.

A supercluster of 830 galaxies located at a distance of 4.5-6.4 billion light years from the solar system was discovered by an international team of scientists, which included representatives of the UK, Spain, the USA and Estonia. Astrophysicists suggest that the galactic wall they discovered is the largest object in the Universe known to date.

The Milky Way is part of a supercluster of galaxies called Laniakea, whose center of gravity is located in a gravitational anomaly called the Great Attractor. Until now, only a group of galaxies called the Great Wall of Sloan could compete with it in size. However, a new object discovered using the BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) database claims to be an absolute record. It is assumed that its mass is about 10 thousand times greater than that of the Milky Way, reports New Scientist.

As some researchers note, today the question of what exactly can be considered a “cosmic object” and how to determine its boundaries if we are talking about a collection of galaxies remains largely debatable. The criterion could be considered the simultaneous movement of all galaxies included in the supercluster in outer space, but it is not possible to check this from such a vast distance with the current level of technology development.

It is also noted that the BOSS galactic wall, which claims to be the largest object in the Universe, has potential competitors. Some researchers pay attention to clusters of quasars, which look as if the quasars in them represent a certain system. However, if a connection between them really exists, it is impossible to explain such a structure from the point of view of modern cosmological theories, so the BOSS galactic wall is a more “realistic” candidate, experts say.

The universe is huge. It is difficult for us to imagine its true size. Scientists say that since the Big Bang it has grown so much that it has... We cannot see the entire Universe, but those parts of it that are open to our eyes also contain many secrets, riddles and other unusual things. In the past we have already written about. Today we’ll talk about single ones: starting from the largest asteroid and ending with the largest galaxy in the visible space of space.

Looks creepy, right?

Reference: One light year is a unit of measurement of distance in astronomy, equal to the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Earth year.

The largest asteroid in the solar system

Such an asteroid can do a lot of things.

Previously, the largest asteroid in the Solar System was Ceres. The diameter of the object is about 950 kilometers. The second largest was considered Pallas with a diameter of 512 kilometers. And Vesta occupied third place as the largest known asteroid in the Solar System, inferior in size to Pallas, but ahead of it in mass.

After scientists transferred to the category dwarf planets, Pallas began to occupy the top line of the largest (in size) asteroids in the Solar System. However, astronomers clarified the size of Vesta and it turned out that it is larger than Pallas. The diameter of Vesta is 530 kilometers. Thus, Vesta became not only the largest, but also the most massive asteroid in our solar system.

The largest satellite of the planet in the solar system

Comparative sizes of Ganymede with other satellites of the solar system and the Earth

Gas giant Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. Its diameter is 5268 kilometers.

Ganymede is one of the four largest moons of Jupiter, which, along with Io, Europa and Callisto, were first discovered by the Italian mathematician, philosopher and astronomer Galileo Galilei. The name Ganymede was not used until the mid-20th century. Galileo called the satellites he discovered “Medici planets,” and Ganymede himself called Jupiter III or “the third satellite of Jupiter.”

Scientists believe that under the surface of Ganymede, which contains much more water than on Earth.

The largest satellite of an exoplanet

The star WASP-12, located 870 light-years away, hosts an exoplanet. Recall that exoplanets are planets that are located outside the solar system.

In 2012, the planet WASP-12b was explored by Russian scientists. They assumed that she had a companion. This possibility was based on an analysis of the brightness (brilliance) of the star. Based on the characteristics of brightness changes, it is possible to calculate what fraction of the star’s disk area is covered by the satellite. Scientists believe that the satellite has a radius of 0.57 of the radius of Jupiter (it is 6.4 times the size of Earth). Such a large size allowed us to assume the existence of a satellite.

The largest planet in the solar system

Comparison of the sizes of Jupiter and Earth.

With a diameter of 142,984 kilometers, Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Jupiter is classified as a gas giant.

Jupiter's mass is 318 times that of Earth. It is 2.5 times heavier than all the other planets in the solar system combined. The giant is located at a distance of about 770 million kilometers from the Sun and makes full turn around the star in about 11.9 Earth years.

Perhaps the most famous feature of Jupiter is its (BKP) - a hurricane that has continued on the planet for more than 300 years. The diameter of the Spot is greater than the diameter of the Earth.

Largest rocky exoplanet

Artist's representation of planet BD+20594 b

The largest rocky exoplanet was discovered by the Kepler space telescope in 2016 in the constellation Aries, which is 500 light years away. The object, designated BD+20594b, is about 16 times heavier than Earth and has a radius 2.2 times that of Earth.

Previously, Kepler-10 c was considered the largest rocky exoplanet. This planet was said to have a radius that is 2.35 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 17 times that of Earth. However, more accurate calculations carried out in 2017 made it possible to establish that the planet Kepler-10c is only 7.4 times heavier than Earth, and its composition is rather closer to gas giants.

The largest gas giant outside the solar system

The largest gas giant.

Determining the largest gas giant exoplanet is not an easy task. Scientists need to take many things into account. For example, in space there are objects so huge that they can hardly be called planets. They are more like a star. At the same time, their mass is less than the minimum required to support nuclear reactions of hydrogen combustion and transformation into a star. Such objects are usually called substellar.

Supposedly the largest exoplanet of the gas giant class among those discovered on this moment is HD 100546 b, discovered in 2013. It is located 337 light years from Earth. Scientists believe that HD 100546 b is 6.9 times larger and 20 times heavier than Jupiter.

The largest star in the Universe

Deep bottomless space.

Currently the most a big star not only in our Milky Way galaxy, but also in known universe is a red hypergiant of UY Scuti. It is located approximately 9,500 light years away. According to scientists, the radius of UY Scutum is equal to 1708 solar radii, but it is constantly changing and can reach 2100 solar radii. The diameter of the star is 2.4 billion kilometers.

Size of our Sun and star UY Scuti (magnified by 7 times)

To understand: if the Sun is drawn with a small circle with a diameter of 1 mm, then for the UY Shield you will need a circle with a diameter of 1.7-2.1 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.

By modern estimates Astronomers say the star UY Scuti is 340,000 times brighter than our Sun.