Billion-light-year galactic wall may be largest object in cosmos

The universe is a web of giant clusters of matter surrounding empty voids

Volker Springel/Max Planck Institute For Astrophysics/SPL

Astronomers peering into the distant universe have discovered the BOSS Great Wall, a vast superstructure of 830 galaxies that is a billion light-years across

Here’s the latest reminder that space is really, really big. At a cool billion light-years across, a distant complex of galaxy superclusters may be the largest structure yet found in the cosmos.

Individual galaxies like our own Milky Way are bound together by gravity into clusters, and these clusters clump into superclusters. These can in turn link together into long lines of galaxies called walls. On the grandest scales, the universe resembles a cosmic web of matter surrounding empty voids – and these walls are the thickest threads.