Photo used for illustrative purpose.

Gulf Today Report

Scientists from the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom have discovered a huge galactic arc in the universe, 9.2 billion light-years away from our galaxy, and 3.3 billion light-years wide, one of the largest structures ever known.

Astronomers called it the "giant arc."

Prof Alexia Lopez, from the University of Central Lancashire in the UK, said: "It is becoming difficult to ignore the growing number of mega structures beyond what is considered theoretically feasible.”

According to cosmologists, the current theoretical limit is calculated to be 1.2 billion light-years, making the Giant Arc even more massive than astronomers know.

The arc was detected in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Lopez and her colleagues studied the light of "quasar galaxies"; the brightest galaxies in the universe, illuminated by powerfully active supermassive black holes in their centers.

When light from these galaxies passes through gas in intergalactic space, some wavelengths are absorbed. The spectral absorption lines generated by this process can be used to map the distribution of matter in the universe. Using this method, the researchers observed that the Giant Sagittarius galaxies appear to be clustered together.