Scientists discover enormous ‘Cosmic Vine’ hosting 20 galaxies

An international team of scientists has made a groundbreaking discovery – a colossal structure known as the ‘Cosmic Vine,’ housing at least 20 massive galaxies. This structure, as dubbed by astronomers, spans about 13 million light-years in length and 0.65 million light-years in width, dwarfing our galaxy, the Milky Way, making it seem insignificant in the vast cosmos.

 

To put the enormity of the ‘Cosmic Vine’ into perspective, if one could travel at impossible lightspeed, it would take roughly 100,000 years to traverse the entire Milky Way. However, even the fastest man-made object, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, travels at only 0.064 percent of the speed of light.

 

Led by Shuowen Jin from the Technical University of Denmark, the group of astronomers has identified this new structure, which is considered fundamental for advancing our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.

 

The ‘Cosmic Vine’ consists of at least 20 massive galaxies and six galaxy overdensities, totaling approximately 260 billion solar masses. Observed with the James Webb Space Telescope in the Extended Groth Strip field, Cosmic Vine appeared at a redshift of 3.44, suggesting it emerged when the universe was a mere 2.5 billion years old, significantly younger than the current estimate of 13.7 billion years.

 

What makes this discovery particularly significant is that Cosmic Vine is an extremely lengthy structure hosting two of the most massive galaxies ever identified at such a high redshift – Galaxy A and Galaxy E. These massive and dense galaxy structures, like the Cosmic Vine, are seen as precursors to galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally bound systems in the universe. As Cosmic Vine is not yet a virialized system, the study indicates that it is in the process of evolving into a galaxy cluster, providing valuable insights into the formation of such clusters and the emergence of massive galaxies within them.

 

The international research team suggests further investigation of quiescent cluster galaxies at high redshifts, believing it will be crucial in unraveling the mysteries of how the largest structures in the universe form and evolve.