By Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

A "proto-supercluster" of galaxies nicknamed Hyperion, after a titan from Greek mythology, as seen using the VIMOS instrument of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. REUTERS/ESO/L. Calcada & Olga Cucciati et al/Handout

(Reuters) - Astronomers peering billions of light years into space have detected the largest, most extensive collection of galaxies ever registered in the early days of the universe, a “proto-supercluster” they nicknamed Hyperion after a titan from Greek mythology.

Hyperion has a mass 1 million billion times greater than the sun and is so distant that it is viewed from earth as it looked billions of years ago.

“Hyperion is like 5,000 galaxies of the Milky Way”, astronomer Steffen Miefke, the chief of operations for the European Southern Observatory, told Reuters. The ESO operates the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, which detected Hyperion.

Hyperion is an adolescent in astronomy terms. Its distance from earth means astronomers are viewing it as it was created just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang, which gave rise to the universe about 13.8 billion years ago.

“These are galaxies very far from us, almost at the beginning of the universe, and allow us to understand better how the universe evolved from the Big Bang until the present day,” Miefke said.

“Hyperion is a sixth of the age of the universe. It’s as though we were able to look at the adolescence of an 80-year-old human being.”

The Milky Way galaxy, which hosts our Solar System, is about 13.6 billion years old.

Hyperion was detected using the Visible Multi-Object Spectrograph, which according to its handlers acts as a “time machine in the middle of desert, showing us how the universe looked when it was just a third of its current age.”

The spectrograph is hosted by the Chile-based Very Large Telescope. The discovery was made by a team led by Olga Cucciati of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy.

The telescope sits in the Chilean desert 760 miles north of the capital Santiago.

Brian Lemaux, an astronomer from University of California, Davis, who co-authored the report, said galaxies become denser as gravity had acted on them over billions of years.

“Superclusters closer to Earth tend to (appear as) a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said Lemaux. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies.”

The research, entitled “The progeny of a Cosmic Titan” will feature in the latest issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. </s> ESO/Luis Calçada & Olga Cucciati et al.

Astronomers have discovered a massive proto-supercluster of galaxies -- bigger than even one million billion Suns.

Scientists have called the ancient colossal structure Hyperion, the European Southern Observatory announced Wednesday. It is reported to have appeared just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang, which took place about 13.7 billion years ago. The cluster's namesake is one of 12 titans born to the gods Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology.

The discovery was made using data from the VIMOS Ultra-deep Survey, which can measure the distance to hundreds of galaxies and map positions within the forming supercluster in 3D, on ESO's Very Large Telescope. Hyperion was located in the constellation of Sextans and found to have a "very complex structure."

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to have a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features," explained astronomer Brian Lemaux who co-led the team behind this discovery.

"But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs populated by loose associations of galaxies," he added.

Astronomers believe this may be because superclusters closer to us have had more time than Hyperion to "gather matter together into denser regions." Give Hyperion a few billion years and it'll likely evolve into something similar.

"This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at… just over two billion years after the Big Bang. Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things," said lead author Olga Cucciati.

"It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the Universe was relatively young… Unearthing this cosmic titan helps uncover the history of these large-scale structures," she added.

First published on Oct. 18, 2:42 a.m. PT.

Correction, 8:12 p.m. PT: Clarifies that the scientists used the VIMOS instrument on ESO's VLT instead of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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This NASA rocket plane was our first space vehicle, and it got left behind. </s> Astronomers have spotted a huge structure of galaxies in a remarkable glimpse into our universe's past.

Hyperion, as scientists are calling it, is a proto-supercluster that holds an enormous quantity of mass, more than 1 million billion times the mass of the sun, the discovering astronomical team reports.

It stands as the biggest structure ever to be found from the universe's early years.

It formed only about 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang, or more than about 11 billion years ago.

“It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the universe was relatively young,” said Olga Cucciati, astronomer and first author of the study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things.”

The discovery was made by an astronomical team, led by Cucciati, from Bologna, Italy's National Institute of Astrophysics.

The proto-supercluster's namesake, Hyperion, was a mythological ancient Greek Titan. The Titan was one of the 12 children of the god of Earth Gaia and the god of the sky Uranus. Hyperion and his siblings overthrew Uranus and were later overthrown by the Olympians, including widely-known figures like Zeus.

Hyperion, the proto-supercluster, is bound together by enormous galaxy filaments, knotting together at least seven highly dense parts of the cluster, according to researchers.

The sprawling structure was described as quite different than those closer to Earth.

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said University of California at Davis astronomer Brian Lemaux, co-leader of the research team. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies.”

The structure's unusual form could be attributed to its age.

“Understanding Hyperion and how it compares to similar recent structures can give insights into how the Universe developed in the past and will evolve into the future,” Cucciati said. "With the presence of such a huge structure already in formation when the universe was so young, we hope to learn more precisely the role of dark matter at that epoch."

Hyperion was spotted in the COSMOS field of the Sextans constellations. </s> There's a lot of stuff out there in the dark, far-flung reaches of the early Universe that we're only just starting to discover. But this one's a real doozy - the early formation of a huge supercluster of galaxies, located 11 billion light-years away - just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.

It's the largest and most massive structure found so early in the Universe, with a mass equivalent to the largest structures found in the Universe today. The evidence suggests it's more massive than one million billion Suns.

Astronomers have nicknamed the behemoth Hyperion, after one of the twelve Titans born to the gods Uranus and Gaia.

"This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang," said astronomer Olga Cucciati of the Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna in Italy.

"Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the Universe was relatively young!"

While estimates put the number of superclusters in the visible Universe at over 10 million, none have been spotted even half as far as Hyperion. It was only earlier this year that the discovery of the most distant supercluster to that date was announced - at a distance of 4 billion light-years away.

Cucciati and her team located the Hyperion proto-supercluster, or supercluster in the process of forming, in the equatorial constellation of Sextans, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope's VIMOS Ultra Deep-field Survey.

Combining this data with redshift data from the zCosmos survey, the team were able to define the 3-dimensional volume of the structure, and study its intricacies.

Hyperion, they discovered, is rather complex. It's similar in size to superclusters closer to Earth (our home supercluster, Virgo, is thought to contain over 47,000 galaxies), although its structure is a bit different. It contains at least seven density peaks, or denser regions, but these are connected by filaments of galaxies.

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to [have] a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features," said astronomer Brian Lemaux of the University of California, Davis.

"But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies."

The difference, the team hypothesise, is that superclusters closer to us have had more time to, well, pull themselves together, so to speak - to more tightly gravitationally bind their galaxies into discrete clumps.

The difference helps us understand supercluster evolution - gradually, over the course of billions of years, Hyperion will likely arrange itself into a similar structure.

"Understanding Hyperion and how it compares to similar recent structures can give insights into how the Universe developed in the past and will evolve into the future, and allows us the opportunity to challenge some models of supercluster formation," Cucciati said.

"Unearthing this cosmic titan helps uncover the history of these large-scale structures."

The team's research will appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, and can be read on pre-print resource arXiv. </s> Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive galaxy super cluster yet found in the early universe, just over two billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy proto-supercluster, nicknamed Hyperion, was identified using the VIMOS instrument on European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile, said researchers from the University of California, Davis in the US.

Hyperion has a calculated mass more than one million billion times that of the Sun, making it the largest and most massive structure to be found so early in the formation of the universe, they said. “This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over two billion years after the Big Bang,” said Olga Cucciati of Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Italy.

“Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something like this evolved when the universe was relatively young,” Cucciati said. Located in the constellation of Sextans, Hyperion was identified by a novel technique to analyse the vast amount of data obtained from the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey.

The VIMOS instrument can measure the distance to hundreds of galaxies at the same time, making it possible to map the position of galaxies within the forming supercluster in three dimensions. The team found that Hyperion has a very complex structure, containing at least seven high-density regions connected by filaments of galaxies, and its size is comparable to superclusters closer to Earth, though it has a very different structure.

“Superclusters closer to Earth tend to be a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said Brian Lemaux from the University of California, Davis. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies,” Lemaux said.

The contrast between Hyperion and less distant superclusters is most likely due to the fact that nearby superclusters have had billions of years for gravity to gather matter together into denser regions — a process that has been acting for far less time in the much younger Hyperion.

Given its size so early in the history of the universe, Hyperion is expected to evolve into something similar to the immense structures in the local universe such as the superclusters making up the Sloan Great Wall or the Virgo Supercluster that contains our own galaxy, the Milky Way. </s> HALIFAX - Astronomers have discovered the beginnings of what they say is a gigantic cosmic pileup that could someday form one of the largest structures in the universe.

The team of Canadian and international scientists say they used a powerful telescope to detect the "impending collision of 14 young, starbursting galaxies" that will become a massive galaxy cluster.

The research, published in the journal Nature, says the so-called protocluster or group of galaxies is 12.4 billion light years away — suggesting its light began travelling to Earth when the universe was 1.4 billion years old.

One of the researchers, astrophysicist Scott Chapman of Dalhousie University, says the discovery challenges conventional understanding of how structures form in the universe since it happened so quickly and in a space only about three times the size of the Milky Way.

Until now, astronomers had theorized that protoclusters as large as this one would have taken much longer to form. </s> Astronomers say this could be the largest structures in the universe

Astronomers have discovered the beginnings of what they say is a gigantic cosmic pileup that could someday form one of the largest structures in the universe.

The team of Canadian and international scientists say they used a powerful telescope to detect the “impending collision of 14 young, starbursting galaxies” that will become a massive galaxy cluster.

The research, published in the journal Nature, says the so-called protocluster or group of galaxies is 12.4 billion light years away — suggesting its light began travelling to Earth when the universe was 1.4 billion years old.

One of the researchers, astrophysicist Scott Chapman of Dalhousie University, says the discovery challenges conventional understanding of how structures form in the universe since it happened so quickly and in a space only about three times the size of the Milky Way.

Until now, astronomers had theorized that protoclusters as large as this one would have taken much longer to form.

Chapman says it gives them the opportunity to study how galaxy clusters come together in extreme environments characterized by hot, ionized gas.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. </s> Astronomers have for the first time witnessed a colossal merger of 14 galaxies that took place more than 12 billion years ago – providing a starting point into how galaxies evolve.

In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of international scientists used computer simulations of the galaxies to predict that, over time, this massive cluster will assemble to become the biggest structure in the modern universe.

Here’s all you need to know:

So why are we just seeing this megamerger now?

This densely-packed galactic smash-up, known as a protocluster, is located approximately 12.4 billion light years away.

This means its light started travelling when the universe was only 1.4 billion years old – about a 10th of its present age – and has just reached us.

Scott Chapman, an astrophysicist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada – and one of the study authors, said: “Having caught a massive galaxy cluster in throes of formation is spectacular in and of itself.

“But, the fact that this is happening so early in the history of the universe poses a formidable challenge to our present-day understanding of the way structures form in the universe.”

How did the astronomers see this cosmic pile-up?

Using a powerful telescope called the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (Alma) in Chile, astronomers peered deep into space to witness the beginnings of the gargantuan merger.

The cosmic pile-up was observed “an astounding 90% of the way across the observable universe”, according to the team.

Alma allowed astronomers to identify 14 starburst galaxies undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formation in a small region of space, confirming that this was a protocluster, called SPT2349-56, in very early stages of development.

Chapman said: “Alma gave us, for the first time, a clear starting point to predict the evolution of a galaxy cluster.”

So what does this all mean?

The scientists say a protocluster as massive SPT2349-56 should have taken much longer to evolve – because they are likely to contain vast amounts of dark matter and gargantuan black holes.

Tim Miller, a doctoral candidate at Yale University and co-author on the paper, said: “How this assembly of galaxies got so big so fast is a bit of a mystery, it wasn’t built up gradually over billions of years, as astronomers might expect.”

Computer simulations indicate that, over the next billion years or so, the 14 galaxies will merge into one giant elliptical galaxy surrounded stars and cosmic dust.

The researchers estimate this mega cluster will have a mass equivalent to 1,000 trillion suns, which would make it the largest known object in the universe. </s> Astronomers have witnessed the beginnings of a huge cosmic pileup that may have created a mega-galaxy.

The discovery was made using the world’s most powerful telescopes to peer 90 per cent of the way across the observable universe.

Here, scientists found a tightly bound galactic smashup, known as a protocluster.

The protocluser is 12.4 billion light-years away and its light started traveling to us when the universe was only 1.4 billion years old.

Calculations suggest that by the present day, hundreds more galaxies would have been eaten up by the cluster.

It could have a mass equivalent to 1,000 trillion suns, which would make a galaxy that is the largest known object in the universe.

Astronomers believe there are at least 14 galaxies packed into an area only four times the diameter of the Milky Way’s galactic disk.

Its individual galaxies are forming stars as much as 1,000 times faster than our home galaxy.

The resulting galaxy cluster will rival some of the most massive clusters we see in the universe today.

This extreme level of congestion and star birth rate is unprecedented.

'[It] seems like we're catching a cluster in the process of being assembled,' says study co-author Chris Hayward, an associate research scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York City.

'This is the missing link in our understanding of how clusters form.'

Using mathematical models based on real observations, an international team of scientists has been able to predict the cluster's movement.

However, how the assembly of galaxies became so big so fast 'is a bit of a mystery,' says study co-author Scott Chapman, Professor in astrophysics at Dalhousie University.

'It wasn't built up gradually over billions of years, as you might expect,' explains Tim Miller, a PhD candidate at Yale University and lead author of one of the papers.

'This discovery provides an incredible opportunity to study how galaxy clusters and their massive galaxies came together in these extreme environments.'

Current theoretical and computer models suggest that protoclusters as massive as this one should have taken much longer to evolve.

Astronomers previously thought that these events occurred around three billion years after the Big Bang.

When they realised they were occurring at half that age, scientists rushed to find a new explanation.

'Having caught a massive galaxy cluster in throes of formation is spectacular in and of itself,' said Scott Chapman, an astrophysicist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

'But, the fact that this is happening so early in the history of the universe poses a formidable challenge to our present-day understanding of the way structures form in the universe,' he said.

The galaxy cluster was first spotted using the South Pole telescope and the Herschel space observatory.

Astronomers then used the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma), a telescope comprising 66 antennas spread over in the Chilean Andes, to make more observations.

After a follow-up with the high-powered Chilean telescopes, the number of baby galaxies seen in the distant cloud rapidly increased.

'It just hit you in the face because all of a sudden there are all these galaxies there,' Dr Chapman says.

'We went from three to 14 in one fell swoop. It instantly became obvious this was a very interesting, massive structure forming and not just a flash in the pan.'
Astronomers discover Hyperion, an ancient proto-supercluster that appeared 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.