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Space

Huge set of galaxies is set to form largest cluster in known universe

Astronomers have spotted a gargantuan protocluster – the primordial beginnings of a galaxy cluster – by searching near a quasar in the early universe

By Alex Wilkins

26 February 2024

Artist’s impression of the quasar that astronomers used to search for early galaxies

ESO/M. Kornmesser

One of the largest quasars in the early universe has helped to reveal a vast “protocluster” of nascent galaxies that is expected to grow more massive than any galaxy cluster we know of.

Protoclusters are the primordial beginnings of the galaxy clusters we see in our region of the universe, before they are bound together by gravity. Astronomers usually look for them by casting their telescopes over wide swathes of space, hoping to find regions with…

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