Astronomers spot a massive cosmic "galaxy highway"
Astronomers have found a huge cosmic filament—a sort of galaxy superhighway—stretching 50 million light-years and packed with over 280 galaxies.
Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, this discovery shakes up what we thought we knew about how galaxies form and move together.
Galaxies spinning in sync (not so random after all)
Instead of moving randomly, many of the galaxies show aligned spins that match the filament's rotation—kind of like riders on a spinning teacup ride, as Dr. Lyla Jung from Oxford puts it.
Co-lead author Dr. Madalina Tudorache said the filament acts like a "fossil" from ancient cosmic streams.
Because it's rich in gas and forming new stars, studying this filament could help us understand how galaxies got their spin and how our universe's giant web came to be.