Spooky alignment of quasars across billions of light-years

[Judi Lynn]

Spooky alignment of quasars across billions of light-years

November 19, 2014
Source:

European Southern Observatory - ESO


[font size=1]
This artist's impression shows schematically the mysterious alignments between the spin axes of quasars and the large-scale structures that
they inhabit that observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope have revealed. These alignments are over billions of light-years and are the
largest known in the universe. The large-scale structure is shown in blue and quasars are marked in white with the rotation axes of their
black holes indicated with a line. This picture is for illustration only and does not depict the real distribution of galaxies and quasars.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
[/font]
New observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have revealed alignments over the largest structures ever discovered in the Universe. A European research team has found that the rotation axes of the central supermassive black holes in a sample of quasars are parallel to each other over distances of billions of light-years. The team has also found that the rotation axes of these quasars tend to be aligned with the vast structures in the cosmic web in which they reside.

Quasars are galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centres. These black holes are surrounded by spinning discs of extremely hot material that is often spewed out in long jets along their axes of rotation. Quasars can shine more brightly than all the stars in the rest of their host galaxies put together.

A team led by Damien Hutsemékers from the University of Liège in Belgium used the FORS instrument on the VLT to study 93 quasars that were known to form huge groupings spread over billions of light-years, seen at a time when the Universe was about one third of its current age.

"The first odd thing we noticed was that some of the quasars' rotation axes were aligned with each other -- despite the fact that these quasars are separated by billions of light-years," said Hutsemékers. The team then went further and looked to see if the rotation axes were linked, not just to each other, but also to the structure of the Universe on large scales at that time.

More:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119084506.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

[shenmue]

1. If you tilt it over, it spells "Boo"

Okay, I made that up.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

12. I tried that... dunno, though.....

Looks like "made ya look" to me.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Farout.

KandR

[DreamGypsy]

3. I don't consider the alignment of quasar rotation axes "spooky"...

...maybe unexpected, interesting, heretofore unexplained, challenging, perhaps beautiful, but not

spook·y ˈspo͞okē/
adjective informal
adjective: spooky; comparative adjective: spookier; superlative adjective: spookiest

1. sinister or ghostly in a way that causes fear and unease.

You can get the research paper here: Alignment of quasar polarizations with large-scale structures. The word spooky doesn't appear in the text.

Hey, ESO PR Department: skip the cheap journalistic distortions.

[Javaman]

4. looks like the synaps in the brain.

interesting.

[zeemike]

9. Or the structure of a molecule.

But that should be no suprise...as above so below.

[Peace Patriot]

5. To commenters above: Einstein's "spooky action at a distance,"

explained here

Einstein's "Spooky Action at a Distance" Paradox Older Than Thought
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427174/einsteins-spooky-action-at-a-distance-paradox-older-than-thought/

and here

Quantum entanglement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

certainly legitimizes the word "spooky" as an adjective for scientific phenomena that don't 'follow the rules'--that are very unexpected, very surprising, very mysterious, seemingly impossible. Einstein was describing the behavior of very tiny bits ("spooky action at a distance" = "quantum entanglement&quot , but the word "spooky" can most certainly be applied to newly observed macro-phenomena in the cosmos. Why not? "Spooky" merely describes our feeling when something happens that violates what our tiny (compared to the cosmos) but complex brains decide is reasonable and normal. "Spooky" intrigues us, thrills us, makes us want to resolve the collision between reason and mystery. Nothing wrong with the word. Why dwell on that and not on the MIND-BOGGLING phenomena of the alignment of quasars across billions of light-years? This is as awesome, mysterious and intriguing as the "spooky" action of particles in "quantum entanglement."

And, actually, it's my spooky, intuitive, poetic, mysterious, unexplainable FEELING that they are related - the very tiny alignments and the very big alignments, both being at the very limits of our perception and both being damn weird.

[Blue Owl]

6. Destination Next Level

Probably just some DNA or something...

[Half-Century Man]

7. Makes sense if you think about it.

In the simplest broad brush way:
As the galactic mass of matter spins around a galactic axis, matter is spread out via centripetal force until a balance is achieved (hence the shape of galaxies). Ergo the gravity well/signature of each galaxy reaches beyond it's borders the furthest along the edge of the disk. Overlapping gravity wells/signatures would influence each other, this could cause the axis to reorientate constantly.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Just nitpicking, but...

A centripetal force pulls toward the center.

That does keep things spinning in orbits, but I don't think it spreads things out.

[Half-Century Man]

11. Damn it

I meant centrifugal force (or what is now recognized as a lack of centripetal force ie: an effect perceived by mentally combining the pull of gravity with the inertia of a moving body).

Just goes to show, proof reading is important.

[FiveGoodMen]

15. Yeah, I think a lot of us have been browbeaten over the term centrifugal force

Seems to me that Newton 3 requires that if there's a centripetal force, there must be an equal and opposite one.

Certainly, it you attach a ball to a string and swing it in a circle above your head, you pull on the string centripetally and the ball pulls on it centrifugally (or there would be no tension in the string).

Your way of putting seems like a good one.

[saidsimplesimon]

14. imho, the earth, along with the entire universe, will shift over the

vast expanse of time. We may not live long enough to survive the brutal environmental assault on planet earth.

Then again, my optimistic side still has lingering hope.

[tridim]

8. Gotta align with something. nt

[Blue State Bandit]

13. Polar aligned quasars along Berkland filiments.

This is not news in the Electric Universe Model. This was predicted over 10 years ago. As was the absence of dark matter annihilation in dwarf galaxies, and ice cream consistency of cometary surfaces. And that's just this month.

[Cryptoad]

16. Comrade Snowden gave us fair warning! ,,,,,,,,, nt

[nikto]

17. It's an encoded mega-message from space...

It's a warning: "Beware of Xenomorphs"