Fraser CainGamma-ray bursts are some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe, briefly outshining the combined light of their entire galaxies. A team of astronomers has figured out a clever technique to use the light from gamma-ray bursts as bright lights that allow them to map out the large-scale structure of the Universe at different ages after the Big Bang. They found that the Universe might be less uniform at large scales than previously thought.
Scanning the Universe for Large-Scale Structures using Gamma-Ray Bursts
In the past few decades, large universal structures have been found that challenge the homogeneity and isotropy expected in standard cosmological models. The largest of these, identified as the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, was found in 2014 in the northern galactic hemisphere in the redshift range of 1.6 < z < 2.1. Subsequent studies used an increasing gamma-ray burst database to show that the cluster was unlikely to have been caused by statistical sampling uncertainties. This study re-examines burst clustering in the northern galactic hemisphere using a recently developed methodology. Evidence is provided that the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall cluster is larger than previously thought, with members potentially spanning the redshift range of 0.33 < z < 2.43. The extension of this cluster's size does not appear to have been due to statistical variations or sampling biases.
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