"Dark Flow" Discovered at the Edge of Known Universe

Back in the Middle Ages, maps showed terrifying images of sea dragons at the boundaries of the known world. Today, scientists have observed strange new motion at the very limits of the known universe - kind of where you'd expect to find new things, but they still didn't expect this.  A huge swathe of galactic clusters seem to be heading to a cosmic hotspot and nobody knows why.

The unexplained motion has hundreds of millions of stars dashing towards a certain part of the sky at over eight hundred kilometers per second.  Not much speed in cosmic terms, but the preferred direction certainly is: most cosmological models have things moving in all directions equally at the extreme edges of the universe.  Something that could make things aim for a specific spot on such a massive scale hasn't been imagined before.  The scientists are keeping to the proven astrophysical strategy of calling anything they don't understand "dark", terming the odd motion a "dark flow".

A black hole can't explain the observations - objects would accelerate into the hole, while the NASA scientists see constant motion over a vast expanse of a billion light-years.  You have no idea how big that is.  This is giant on a scale where it's not just that we can't see what's doing it; it's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening.

Which is fantastic!  Such discoveries force a whole new set of ideas onto the table which, even if they turn out to be wrong, are the greatest ways to advance science and our understanding of everything. One explanation that's already been offered is that our universe underwent a period of hyper-inflation early in its existence, and everything we think of as the vast and infinite universe is actually a small corner under the sofa of the real expanse of reality.  Which would be an amazing, if humbling, discovery.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Related Galaxy posts:

Map of the Missing Cosmos
1st 3-D Map of the Universe's Dark Matter
Cosmic Collision  Sheds Light on Mystery of Dark Matter
New, Revised Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Cosmic Dark Flow

Comments

[12-21-2012]

Wow, its things like this that make you wonder, and i agree what a humbling occurence. im sure theres an explaintion, such as maybe some type of implosion. Or maybe it is some type of malfunction within the universe But as Einstein (not known to be a religious man) once said "God doesnt play dice" so ill leave the truth to the astrophysists, since god doesnt ever spek up to much.

[Stefan Lamoureux]

Hi!
At first glimps of the article and the foto in the daily galactic, it was like the image was inviting me to come closer... it pulled me to it.

Imagine if our universe (as we think we know it) is just another regoupement of all the galaxy clusters we see until now, a kind of BIG universe (the one we know) revolving around and interracting with an other universe (one of those we dont know)to complete the hole universe that we will one day discover. In others words, Universes pulled togheter by gravity to make up the entire universe.

It is facinating. Big, but facinating.
Thanks
Stefu

[ciara]

humbling,... exactly.
there are no other words,.. ask those involved with watching...

[Cliff]

That is crazy! A billion light-years across! It just boggles the mind! Yes, the corner-in-the-sofa thing would make sense. I'm still trying to come to terms with that though!

Looks like the textbook editors will be getting very busy soon.

[MR]

Very interesting.
Could be feasable.
But where is the research behind this? What makes this valid???

[Pixie of key]

Shoot up in two shotgun in space from two different places in the same area. Shotguns the distance is perhaps a hundred meters and the shot from the same region the same time as 10 kilometers away, after which they will continue to divergence and journeyed quite the same direction. Part of shells, however, goes a different direction, even if all shot to continue their journey away from the same area from where they were shot at moving!

If the second shotgun shot yet shells slightly faster circulation, and perhaps a bit later, so avot.

Now, just think of a shell it is clusters a set of galaksy stars were born only because the area where the shot come from the same region.

(Stars born later, when babyclusters are same area in space who dont expanding and space who was there already)

Shotgun illustrate the huge energy mergers which are the shot came, but so that they do not drive their own power, but only the pushing of force based on the fact that energy turns into a normal high density of less energy when the gunpowder explodes noticeably!

A change of power in the high density of less energy, when the gunpowder explodes noticeably?

If so, why should space to expand, although the energy is expanding noticeably mode, which does not change?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewKGNIZpuE

[Pixie of key]

Shoot up in two shotgun in space from two different places in the same area. Shotguns the distance is perhaps a hundred meters and the shot from the same region the same time as 10 kilometers away, after which they will continue to divergence and journeyed quite the same direction. Part of shells, however, goes a different direction, even if all shot to continue their journey away from the same area from where they were shot at moving!

If the second shotgun shot yet shells slightly faster circulation, and perhaps a bit later, so avot.

Now, just think of a shell it is clusters a set of galaksy stars were born only because the area where the shot come from the same region.

(Stars born later, when babyclusters are same area in space who dont expanding and space who was there already)

Shotgun illustrate the huge energy mergers which are the shot came, but so that they do not drive their own power, but only the pushing of force based on the fact that energy turns into a normal high density of less energy when the gunpowder explodes noticeably!

A change of power in the high density of less energy, when the gunpowder explodes noticeably?

If so, why should space to expand, although the energy is expanding noticeably mode, which does not change?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewKGNIZpuE

[Pixie of key]

Shoot up in two shotgun in space from two different places in the same area. Shotguns the distance is perhaps a hundred meters and the shot from the same region the same time as 10 kilometers away, after which they will continue to divergence and journeyed quite the same direction. Part of shells, however, goes a different direction, even if all shot to continue their journey away from the same area from where they were shot at moving!

If the second shotgun shot yet shells slightly faster circulation, and perhaps a bit later, so avot.

Now, just think of a shell it is clusters a set of galaksy stars were born only because the area where the shot come from the same region.

(Stars born later, when babyclusters are same area in space who dont expanding and space who was there already)

Shotgun illustrate the huge energy mergers which are the shot came, but so that they do not drive their own power, but only the pushing of force based on the fact that energy turns into a normal high density of less energy when the gunpowder explodes noticeably!

A change of power in the high density of less energy, when the gunpowder explodes noticeably?

If so, why should space to expand, although the energy is expanding noticeably mode, which does not change?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewKGNIZpuE

[Pixie of key]

Shoot up in two shotgun in space from two different places in the same area. Shotguns the distance is perhaps a hundred meters and the shot from the same region the same time as 10 kilometers away, after which they will continue to divergence and journeyed quite the same direction. Part of shells, however, goes a different direction, even if all shot to continue their journey away from the same area from where they were shot at moving!

If the second shotgun shot yet shells slightly faster circulation, and perhaps a bit later, so avot.

Now, just think of a shell it is clusters a set of galaksy stars were born only because the area where the shot come from the same region.

(Stars born later, when babyclusters are same area in space who dont expanding and space who was there already)

Shotgun illustrate the huge energy mergers which are the shot came, but so that they do not drive their own power, but only the pushing of force based on the fact that energy turns into a normal high density of less energy when the gunpowder explodes noticeably!

A change of power in the high density of less energy, when the gunpowder explodes noticeably?

If so, why should space to expand, although the energy is expanding noticeably mode, which does not change?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewKGNIZpuE

[rick386]

Something else they don't understand. It just goes to show that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. And once we have the universe figured out, we still won't know the mind of God.

[rick386]

I have a nat. geo. star map that approximates the size of the universe. the final theory mentioned in the article still doesn't touch on the idea of infinity, only 'much bigger'. Another article at this site approximates how big a black hole could be by now assuming a start time. Just because all evidence we have says it all began say 11 billion yrs ago, does that make it so? Can't infinity refer to time as well as space? To think the universe ha boundries is akin to the old maps showing and end to a flat earth with a dragon waiting.

[A Billion Years Light]

9460800000000000000000km =D too long haha!

[archie]

Nuts! I always had trouble in trying to picture in my mind the vastness of the universe. This just makes me feel faint. How wonderful...