Astronomers Discover LARGEST Shock Wave In the Universe | 60x LARGER than Milky Way

 

Astronomers across the globe are shocked by a new discovery and its potentially lethal consequences they have recently discovered a pair of intergalactic shock waves 60 times larger than the milky way that are the result of a cataclysmic event that may be the largest since the big bang itself and they're

 racing through the universe at nearly

 the speed of light what caused this colossal event that propelled these massive waves out into the depths of space welcome the Science Reads in today's article we reveal this earth-shattering event and what it proves to us about the violence and unpredictability of the universe we live in galaxies are not spread evenly through

 the universe and there are many joined

 in clusters across the heavens galaxy clusters are staggeringly huge cosmic beings the largest gravitationally bound structures in the cosmos and sometimes they are captured by each other's gravity and pulled together in a merger that is both frightening and spectacular about a billion years ago two of these titans collided in an event on unbelievable scale even for our universe one result of the two galaxy clusters colliding is a chaotic super cluster known as Abell 3667 this giant is about 730 million light years from earth and one of the strongest x-ray sources in the southern sky residing in this fascinating neighborhood are over 550 individual galaxies and being in the southern sky astronomers were able to study Abell 3667 and what its dramatic birth produced using one of the most sensitive telescopes in the world

 using the innovative mere cat radio telescope which consists of 64 parabolic dish antennas that are 44 feet in diameter spread over an area of 5 miles in the northern Cairo desert of south Africa researchers in 2018 imaged the radio relics produced by the merger and found something truly stunning something that is only visible in radio wavelengths and would otherwise be undetectable unless you are fortunate enough to be nearby and the stunning results are barreling through the universe at nearly light speed still at nearly light speed after a billion years researchers say the energy released by the collision is the largest from one event since the big bang this intergalactic mash-ups and gravitational waves ripping through the cosmos that make our milky way look puny by comparison how big the milky way spends about 100 000 light years the gravitational waves up to 6.5 million light years across for perspective ic1101 is the largest known galaxy and according to nasa is maybe four million light years across for even more perspective take a fuzzy yellow tennis ball and place it next to a full-size basketball the difference between one of the waves the basketball and our galaxy represented by the fuzzy little yellow thing is greater than what you see with the balls and here's the kicker as the waves spawned by the enormous collision shot electrons away at almost light speed these particles rip through the magnetic fields of the two galaxy clusters somewhat in the way sonic booms result from supersonic aircraft just on a ridiculously larger scale the results not one but two massive radio arcs we are witnessing today both are 60 times larger than the milky way both are racing apart at over 3.3 million miles per hour and are now about 13 million light years from each other how did they get so fast francesco de gaspirin lead author of the just released study explained the shock waves act as giant particle accelerators and accelerate electrons almost to the speed of light the waves are threaded by an intricate pattern of bright filaments that trace the location of giant magnetic field lines and the regions where electrons are accelerated think large hadron collider the world's most powerful particle accelerator but on steroids the international team agrees that the enormous shock waves are much more complicated structures than they anticipated science wouldn't be science if it wasn't telling us of one way or another that life on earth will be extinguished by well any number of scary things but just for fun

 let's imagine that we have the misfortune of being nearby when one of these gravitational waves is launched by some grand cosmic event most gravitational waves are spherical moving outward from the event like ripples from a rock thrown into a pond except more like tsunamis in space first of all earth is in fact being hit by gravitational waves periodically that cause an ever so slight stretching and squeezing of our planet and us just far less than how your body is strained and stretched by jumping up and down on the ground thousands of times smaller than the width of a proton so no worries so far just say a large enough gravitational wave passes through us from a nearby calamitous event when this happens the planet is squeezed on one side and stretched on the other much in the way a rubber ball reacts when you compress it in your head in other words it would tear our little home world apart bringing cataclysmic earthquakes volcanic eruptions tsunamis and other effects that would generally ruin your day and and life on earth as portuguese astrophysicist vitor cardoso says it would stretch earth by thousands of kilometers and everything would be destroyed before adding as soon as we learned about it we would die would the earth or our atmosphere offer

 any protection from this cosmic intruder no in a different scenario we are hit by something in between the planet destroyer at least immediately and the ones coming through that we never feel the effect on earth would be something akin to jupiter's influence on io one of its moons that is under great gravitational pressure from its home planet io is one of the most volcanically active moons in the solar system and our earth massive warming intense storms tsunamis and tornadoes thankfully our backyard is over 400 million light years away from a pair of orbiting black holes the most likely culprit for sending a gravitational wave our way so gravitational waves are not a great excuse for uncorking several bottles of vino to relieve the worry that one is going to rip us apart as we have seen gravitational waves

 can be freakishly huge and powerful

 and if you are close enough to their origin retirement planning is not a major concern but what if the waves created by separate cosmic collisions or mergers or both and traveling nearly the speed of light as the ones we've recently discovered crash into each other those ripples from you tossing a rock in the water meet ripples from another rock tossed in the same water researchers at princeton university and the perimeter institute for theoretical physics in waterloo ontario took on that question using einstein's equations from his general theory of relativity this bizarre and cataclysmic

 encounter would their findings indicate

 tangle space-time and in turn create a black hole the new black hole could absorb about 85 of the energy from the gravitational waves while remaining ripples would circle it forever so just to summarize while we are comfortable on our planet near our stable star and far from any obvious source of interstellar danger along come gravitational waves from different directions these waves collide nearby and while enjoying your morning cup of coffee a black hole is suddenly where the moon was last night think we should maybe watch out for these things we are finding more and even larger shock waves in the future will be simpler with something that is being constructed right now as innovative and useful as meerkat is there is a new

 sheriff riding into town and the name is ska the square kilometer array observatory work began last year after 30 years of preparation that's right three whole decades ska is being built on two sites the northern desert of south africa in the same region of meerkat and in western australia north of perth the south african network will have 197 dishes 50 feet in diameter and the australian division will feature 131 073 antennas the array will be capable of detecting radio waves from 13 billion years ago which is in the afterglow of the big bang it will be like the james webb space telescope just earthbound and used for radio astronomy and even more are being built in the us japan and india the more detectors we have the more we can verify that what is detected is not from seismic disturbances or even aircraft redundancy and independent verification are key so what do you think about these enormous waves racing through space and since they are traveling at nearly the speed of light is there a possibility that something we have not yet detected in the not so distant cosmos has sent something similar our way tell us in the comments