Astronomers from the Potsdam Astrophysical Institute named after Leibnitsa (Germany) in collaboration with scientists from China and Estonia for the first time discovered the rotation of the largest cosmological structures in the universe. The opening is reported in the article published in the magazine Nature Astromomy.
Although space structures have a variety of scales – from dwarf galaxies to gigantic superclauses – the generation of angular momentum among the largest of them is poorly studied. In the new work, scientists studied whether the galactic threads (fibers) can rotate – the largest observed structures consisting of galaxies in the universe, the average length of which is 160-260 million light years. The threads connect with each other by the accumulation of galaxies and are separated by vascular – giant voids. The galaxies inside the threads tend to the side of the clusters at the ends of the threads attracted by a large gravitating mass.
Researchers analyzed the movement of galaxies in thousands of threads with the help of the Skown Digital Sky Review (SDSS), which provides scientists with data on millions of galaxies, their spectral images and the magnitude of the red displacement. The astronomers measured the speed of those galaxies, which move perpendicular to the axes of the threads, according to their red and blue displacement, arising from the Doppler effect (with a red displacement, the object is removed from the observer, with blue – approaching. It turned out that the galaxies demonstrate a spiral movement, that is, rotate Around the axis while moving along the thread. This makes the fibers with the largest objects with an angular moment.
The rotation of the galactic thread is clearly determined when observed from the edge, with the more massive halo, which are at the ends of the threads, the greater rotation is detected. The fiber twisting mechanism remains a mystery.
It is known that there was no rotation in the early universe. According to the standard model, the formation of areas with excessive density occurs due to gravitational instability. The substance begins to flow towards such areas, forming large-scale cosmological structures, but such streams were disgust. In other words, the rotation should occur later, in the formation of the structures themselves.