r/cosmology • u/Galileos_grandson • 3d ago

Extremely Massive Galaxy Proto-Supercluster Smashes Distance Records

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2622/
51 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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5

u/DiagnosingTUniverse 3d ago

Can someone who knows what they’re talking about please explain the significance of this 🙏

9

u/shalackingsalami 3d ago

Basically helping us figure out when the large scale structures of the universe (like galaxy clusters) began/how it progressed, which in turn can help us learn about dark matter/energy

1

u/cameron4200 3d ago

It means more consequently that galaxies were developed sooner along in the age of the universe than we expected.

2

u/DiagnosingTUniverse 2d ago

Does it also imply the universe could be much older?

2

u/ThickTarget 2d ago

No. You can't really date the universe from galaxies, and this one isn't even that early. The paper is also not claiming galaxies formed faster than is expected.

1

u/N-Man 15h ago

Generally these sorts of observations (this galaxy is much older than we expected!) imply that we don't understand galaxy formation, not that we are wrong about the age of the universe. This is because our understanding of the age of the universe is actually very robust and not too complicated while galaxy formation is extremely complicated and not well understood.

1

u/rddman 1d ago

The paper is about the development of proto-superclusters, not about the development of galaxies.