To their surprise, an international team of researchers has discovered a giant and extremely faint stream of stars between galaxies. While streams are already known in our own galaxy and in nearby galaxies, this is the first time that a stream running between galaxies has been observed. It is the largest stream detected to date. The astronomers have published their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The first observations were made with astronomer Michael Rich’s relatively small 70-centimeter telescope in California (United States of America). Next, the researchers focused the 4.2-meter William Herschel telescope (La Palma, Spain) on the area. After image processing, they saw an extremely faint stream more than 10 times the length of our Milky Way. The stream appears floating in the middle of the cluster environment, not associated with any galaxy in particular. The researchers have named it the Giant Coma Stream.
Reminds me of the setting of The Stars are Legion. Not exactly the same, it’s a cluster of artificial planets in the middle of empty space, not a natural phenomenon. But it creates the same kind of “in this together” atmosphere form being isolated.
And yet the scale is still massive, ten times as long as the Milky Way is wide.
It also reminds me somewhat of Against a Dark Background, although in that case a single star system is completely isolated in the void. It’s all filled up and no one has FTL.🥲
I wonder how the unusual viewing conditions would impact cultural and scientific development. Even naked eye astronomers would quickly notice the difference between stars nearby in the stream and the more distant cluster galaxies. That makes me think of the comparative anthropology approach of U K LeGuin.