Astronomers have discovered the first bubbles in galaxies, a cosmic structure almost beyond imagination. It is believed to be the fossilized remains of the Big Bang site behind our galaxy, or just after the Big Bang. The discovered bubble extends for a billion light years, which is 10,000 times wider than the Milky Way.
Key points
- The giant bubble, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, lies relatively close to our galaxy, about 820 million light-years away, in what astronomers call the nearby universe.
- The light year is a unit of length used to estimate astronomical distances. One light-year is equal to approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers.
- According to Daniel Pomarède, an astronomer at France’s Atomic Energy Commission, the bubble is being imagined as a spherical shell with a heart.
- Inside the bubble is a group of galaxies known as the Boots Supercluster, which is surrounded by a vast void so vast it has been called the Nothing or the Great Nothing.
- The bubble contains several other galaxy superclusters already known to science, including the massive structure known as Sloan’s Great Wall.
- According to researcher Pomarède, the discovery of the bubble, which is described in the research, published this week in The Astrophysical Journal, has been part of a very long scientific process.
- This bubble was first described in 1970 by American cosmologist and future physics Nobel laureate Jim Peebles.
- A theory by Jim Peebles suggests that a strange gravity and radiation churning of hot plasma in the early universe produced sound waves called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO).
- As the sound waves rippled through the plasma, they created bubbles. This process stopped about 380,000 years after the Big Bang as the universe cooled, freezing the bubble’s shape.
- As the universe expanded, the bubbles grew larger, becoming similar to other fossilized remains from the time after the Big Bang.
- Astronomers previously detected signs of BAO when looking at data on galaxies around 2005.
- According to the researchers, the newly discovered bubble is the first known single baryon acoustic oscillation.
- Astronomers called their bubble Hooleilana. The name is derived from the Hawaiian creation mantra. The name is derived from the study’s lead author, astronomer Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii.
Galaxy
Theories related to the origin of the universe
1. Big Bang Theory: George Lemaitre.
2. Equilibrium Theory: Thomas Gold and Herman Waddy.
3. Oscillation Theory: Dr. Alan Sandeja.
Universe
- According to an estimate, about 100 billion galaxies together constitute one universe.
- A galaxy is a huge cluster of innumerable stars, which has a central bulge and three rotating arms. These three rotating arms are made of many wires.
- The bulge is called the center of the galaxy. The concentration of stars is highest here. Each galaxy contains about 100 billion stars.
- Lyman Alpha Blobs are a group of giant galaxies and gases shaped like amoeba and 200 million light years wide. The galaxies of this giant structure are four times closer to each other than other galaxies present in the universe.
- Andromeda is the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, located at a distance of 2.2 million light years from our Milky Way.
- Our galaxy is called the Milky Way. Its shape is ‘Spiral’. This type of galaxy includes new and old stars.
- The Milky Way is a group of stars visible at night, which is part of our galaxy.
- The Orion Nebula is a cluster of the coolest and brightest stars in our galaxy.
- The diameter of our galaxy is one lakh light years. The Sun is a star in our galaxy. It has been revolving around the galaxy for more than 200 million (20 crore) years.
- Plenum is a group of identical twin planets outside the Solar System.
- Cirrus or Dog Star is located 9 light years away from Earth and is a star with twice the mass of the Sun. It is 20 times brighter than the Sun and is the brightest star visible at night.