Biggest Object in Universe : Pure Pedantry

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision-making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.

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Biggest Object in Universe

Posted on: August 2, 2006 1:01 AM, by NotoriousLTP

The biggest object in the Universe is glimpsed, and everyone is surprised:

An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say.
The galaxies and gas bubbles, called Lyman alpha blobs, are aligned along three curvy filaments that formed about 2 billion years after the universe exploded into existence after the theoretical Big Bang.

The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea.

The galaxies within the newly found structure are packed together four times closer than the universe's average.

Some of the gas bubbles are up to 400,000 light years across, nearly twice the diameter of our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy.

Biggest things in the Universe: Lyman alpha blobs
Second biggest things in the Universe: Lyman's ~~cahones~~ cojones for naming the biggest things in the Universe after himself

"Yeah Baby, you know some of the biggest things in the Universe. Named after moi. [points at self]...But none of them can compare to our love..."

UPDATE: Thank you Seed for highlighting my rather limited abilities in both spelling and Spanish.

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I'd assume the name comes from the Lyman alpha transition of the neutral hydrogen in the spectra of distant galaxies and quasars, and that Lyman died in 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman-alpha_forest

Posted by: Thomas Palm | August 2, 2006 2:09 AM

Biggest things in the Universe: Lyman alpha blobs
Second biggest things in the Universe: Lyman's cahones for naming the biggest things in the Universe after himself

While it's a lovely imgae, I believe Lyman is long dead. "Lyman Alpha" in spectroscopy refers to a particular atomic transition in hydrogen, and the blobs are most likely named that because of some signature emission at that wavelength.

Posted by: Chad Orzel | August 2, 2006 7:28 AM

Well shoot. I guess a man can dream that someone would actually do that.

Posted by: Jake Young | August 2, 2006 10:06 AM

I know that it's not comparable, but who do you think tried to introduce the von Klitzing constant?

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | August 3, 2006 4:03 PM