Astronomers have discovered one of the largest rotating structures ever seen in the universe, a vast cosmic formation that spins in a way reminiscent of a teacups ride at a theme park.
Located about 140 million light-years from Earth, this enormous structure could help scientists better understand how galaxies formed and gained their spin in the early universe.
The discovery was made by an international research team led by the University of Oxford and has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
At the heart of the finding is a giant cosmic filament, part of the so-called “cosmic web” that shapes the large-scale structure of the universe.
Cosmic filaments are immense, thread-like structures made of galaxies and dark matter, forming a kind of scaffolding on which galaxies are built.
In this case, the researchers identified a strikingly thin line of 14 nearby galaxies rich in hydrogen gas.
This narrow structure stretches for about 5.5 million light-years while being only around 117,000 light-years wide.
It sits inside a much larger filament roughly 50 million light-years long, which contains more than 280 galaxies in total.
What makes this filament especially remarkable is how it moves. Many of the galaxies embedded within it appear to be spinning in the same direction, far more than would be expected by chance.
Even more intriguingly, the entire filament itself seems to be rotating. Galaxies on opposite sides of the filament’s central spine are moving in opposite directions, a clear sign that the structure as a whole is spinning.
Using models of how filaments behave, the team estimated that the filament is rotating at about 110 kilometres per second.
The dense central region where the galaxies are concentrated has a radius of roughly 163,000 light-years. This combination of aligned galaxy spins and large-scale rotation challenges existing theories, which often assume that such alignment should weaken over time or over large distances.
The filament also appears to be relatively young and undisturbed. Many of its galaxies are rich in hydrogen gas, the raw material needed to form new stars. Their calm internal motions suggest the structure is still in an early stage of development, offering a rare glimpse into how galaxies grow and evolve within the cosmic web.
Hydrogen-rich galaxies are especially useful for tracing how gas flows along filaments into galaxies. By studying them, astronomers can learn how matter and angular momentum move through the universe, shaping galaxy rotation, structure, and star formation.
The discovery was made using data from South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, combined with optical observations from other major surveys. Together, these observations reveal a rotating cosmic structure on an extraordinary scale, offering fresh clues about how the universe’s largest structures influence the galaxies within them.
Source: KSR.
