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Quipu’s sheer size potentially makes it the largest object in the universe in terms of length, surpassing previous record-holders like the Laniākea supercluster.
Quipu is more than 13,000 times the length of our Milky Way galaxy. (Representative Image)
Astronomers have identified what could be the largest structure ever found in the known universe. This massive formation, named “Quipu,” stretches an astonishing 1.3 billion light-years across and contains an estimated 200 quadrillion solar masses. Inspired by the Incan counting system of knotted cords, the structure mirrors its namesake with a long central filament and multiple branching filaments.
Quipu’s immense scale—over 13,000 times the length of the Milky Way—potentially makes it the longest-known structure in the universe, surpassing previous record-holders like the Laniākea supercluster.
The discovery comes from a study titled Unveiling the Largest Structures in the Nearby Universe: Discovery of the Quipu Superstructure, led by Hans Bohringer of the Max Planck Institute.
According to a report in Live Science, the study is part of an ongoing effort to create a detailed map of how matter is distributed across the universe using different types of light. As light from distant objects moves toward the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum, known as redshift, it indicates that those objects are further away. While redshifts of up to 0.3 have been extensively studied, this new research focuses on objects with redshifts between 0.3 and 0.6 which represent even more distant parts of the universe. The higher the redshift, the farther away the object is.
“Quipu is actually a prominent structure readily noticeable by eye in a sky map of clusters in the target redshift range, without the help of a detection method,” the team wrote in the paper.
The structures in the new study were detected between 425 million and 815 million light-years away from Earth.
Quipu is not the only giant structure discovered. Along with it, four other massive superstructures were found: the Shapley supercluster, the Serpens-Corona Borealis superstructure, the Hercules supercluster and the Sculptor-Pegasus superstructure. These five superstructures together make up about 45 per cent of galaxy clusters, 30 per cent of galaxies and 25 per cent of the matter in the universe. They cover roughly 13 per cent of the universe’s volume.
The researchers also detected that these large structures also influence the universe’s overall environment. Their gravitational pull can cause distortions in light, known as gravitational lensing, and affect the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. Furthermore, these superstructures can affect measurements of the universe’s expansion, known as the Hubble constant.
“In the future cosmic evolution, these superstructures are bound to break up into several collapsing units. They are thus transient configurations. But at present they are special physical entities with characteristic properties and special cosmic environments deserving special attention,” the researchers wrote.
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