The Giant GRB Ring is a ring of 9

gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten millise ...

s (GRBs) that may be associated with one of the largest known cosmic structures. It was discovered in July 2015 by a team of Hungarian and American astronomers led by L.G. Balazs while analyzing data from different gamma-ray and X-ray telescopes, in particular the Swift Spacecraft. The ring of GRBs lies at a distance of about 2.8

gigaparsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s (9.1 billion light years) from Earth at the redshift between 0.78 and 0.86 and measures about 1.72 gigaparsecs (5.6 billion light years) in diameter, making it one of the largest structures known. Typically, the distribution of GRBs in the universe appears in the sets of less than the 2σ distribution, or with fewer than two GRBs in the average data of the point-radius system. Thus, such a concentration as this appears extremely unlikely, given accepted theoretical models. Proposals include the existence of a giant supergalactic structure. This would be an extremely huge structure of the universe, with a mean size of about 5.6 billion light years. Such a supercluster can explain the significant distribution of GRBs because of its tie to star formation. If such a structure did exist, it would be one of the largest structures of the

observable universe The observable universe is a ball-shaped region of the universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth or its space-based telescopes and exploratory probes at the present time, because the electromagnetic radiation from these ob ...

Discovery

In early July 2015, after the discovery of the

Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall The Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall or simply the Great Wall is the largest known structure in the observable universe, measuring approximately 10 billion light-years in length (the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years in di ...

, I. Horvath, J. Hakkila and Z. Bagoly, among others, conducted a further detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of GRBs within the distant universe. Provided by more than 15 years of data from the

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray, and UV/Visible light at the location o ...

, amongst other ground-based telescopes, they assessed the data to see if any more structures can be seen using the method of GRB correlation. They noticed a significant clustering of GRBs within z = 0.78–0.86, with nine GRBs concentrated in that region of 43 by 30 degrees of the sky. With further tests and analyses of the clustering, they found out that the sample was indeed having a higher concentration than the expected normal level, indication of a massive galactic structure within the vicinity.

Characteristics

The paper released by the team did not show any data concerning the location of the structure. However, the distance and size was given. It is about 9.1 billion light years from Earth and about 5.6 billion light years across.The discovery.com article.
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References

* * {{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System Galaxy superclusters Gamma-ray bursts Large-scale structure of the cosmos

Discovery

Characteristics

See also

References