Massive BAOs like Ho’oleilana are predicted based on our current understanding of the Big Bang and how the early universe evolved.įor about 400,000 years following the Big Bang, matter in the universe took the form of a dense, nearly uniform sea of extremely hot plasma, with electrons too energized to settle down with atomic nuclei. 5 in The Astrophysical Journal, will not only help astronomers untangle the mysteries of early galaxy evolution, but also might hint at subtle issues concerning the expansion rate of the universe. The massive bubble also displays an enhanced density of galaxies emanating from its center, and it is composed of previously identified structures that themselves are some of the largest known structures in the universe. Ho’oleilana, which is located just 820 million light-years from the Milky Way, consists of a full spherical shell of galaxies with a supercluster core, as predicted by theory. These fossilized imprints of matter in the early universe date back more than 13 billion years, to the moment the cosmos entered a new transparent phase some 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Named Hoʻoleilana, a nod to a Hawaiian creation chant that describes the origin of structure, the massive bubble is thought to be what’s called a baryon acoustic oscillation, or BAO. (Zosia Rostomian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)Īstronomers recently discovered an enormous cosmic bubble packed with galaxies that stretches nearly 1 billion light-years across and seems to be an ancient vestige from the infant universe. Credit: Recreation of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. An illustration of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, or BAO.
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