CfA2 Great Wall

CfA2 Great Wall

The Great Wall (also called Coma Wall), sometimes specifically referred to as the CfA2 Great Wall, is one of the largest known super-structures in the Universe (the largest two being the Sloan Great Wall and the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex). It is a filament of galaxies approximately 200 million light-years away and has dimensions which measure over 500 million light-years long, 300 million light-years wide and 15 million light-years thick. It was discovered in 1989 by Margaret Geller and John Huchra based on redshift survey data from the CfA Redshift Survey.[1]

It is not known how much farther the wall extends due to the plane of the Milky Way galaxy in which Earth is located. The gas and dust from the Milky Way (known as the Zone of Avoidance) obscure the view of astronomers and have so far made it impossible to determine if the wall ends or continues on further than they can currently observe.

In the standard model of the evolution of the universe, such structures as the Great Wall form along and follow web-like strings of dark matter.[2] It is thought that this dark matter dictates the structure of the Universe on the grandest of scales. Dark matter gravitationally attracts baryonic matter, and it is this "normal" matter that astronomers see forming long, thin walls of super-galactic clusters.

See also

References

  1. ^ GELLER, MARGARET J.; JOHN P. HUCHRA (1989-11-17). "Mapping the Universe". Science 246 (4932): 897–903. Bibcode 1989Sci...246..897G. doi:10.1126/science.246.4932.897. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/246/4932/897.abstract. Retrieved 2011-05-03. 
  2. ^ Riordan, Michael; David N. Schramm (1991-03). Shadows of Creation: Dark Matter and the Structure of the Universe. W H Freeman & Co (Sd). ISBN 0716721570. 

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