ESO/Luis Calçada & Olga Cucciati et al.

Astronomers have discovered a massive proto-supercluster of galaxies -- bigger than even one million billion Suns.

Scientists have called the ancient colossal structure Hyperion, the European Southern Observatory announced Wednesday. It is reported to have appeared just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang, which took place about 13.7 billion years ago. The cluster's namesake is one of 12 titans born to the gods Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology.

The discovery was made using data from the VIMOS Ultra-deep Survey, which can measure the distance to hundreds of galaxies and map positions within the forming supercluster in 3D, on ESO's Very Large Telescope. Hyperion was located in the constellation of Sextans and found to have a "very complex structure."

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to have a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features," explained astronomer Brian Lemaux who co-led the team behind this discovery.

"But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs populated by loose associations of galaxies," he added.

Astronomers believe this may be because superclusters closer to us have had more time than Hyperion to "gather matter together into denser regions." Give Hyperion a few billion years and it'll likely evolve into something similar.

"This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at… just over two billion years after the Big Bang. Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things," said lead author Olga Cucciati.

"It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the Universe was relatively young… Unearthing this cosmic titan helps uncover the history of these large-scale structures," she added.

First published on Oct. 18, 2:42 a.m. PT.

Correction, 8:12 p.m. PT: Clarifies that the scientists used the VIMOS instrument on ESO's VLT instead of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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A "proto-supercluster" of galaxies nicknamed Hyperion, after a titan from Greek mythology, as seen using the VIMOS instrument of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. REUTERS/ESO/L. Calcada & Olga Cucciati et al/Handout

(Reuters) - Astronomers peering billions of light years into space have detected the largest, most extensive collection of galaxies ever registered in the early days of the universe, a “proto-supercluster” they nicknamed Hyperion after a titan from Greek mythology.

Hyperion has a mass 1 million billion times greater than the sun and is so distant that it is viewed from earth as it looked billions of years ago.

“Hyperion is like 5,000 galaxies of the Milky Way”, astronomer Steffen Miefke, the chief of operations for the European Southern Observatory, told Reuters. The ESO operates the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, which detected Hyperion.

Hyperion is an adolescent in astronomy terms. Its distance from earth means astronomers are viewing it as it was created just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang, which gave rise to the universe about 13.8 billion years ago.

“These are galaxies very far from us, almost at the beginning of the universe, and allow us to understand better how the universe evolved from the Big Bang until the present day,” Miefke said.

“Hyperion is a sixth of the age of the universe. It’s as though we were able to look at the adolescence of an 80-year-old human being.”

The Milky Way galaxy, which hosts our Solar System, is about 13.6 billion years old.

Hyperion was detected using the Visible Multi-Object Spectrograph, which according to its handlers acts as a “time machine in the middle of desert, showing us how the universe looked when it was just a third of its current age.”

The spectrograph is hosted by the Chile-based Very Large Telescope. The discovery was made by a team led by Olga Cucciati of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy.

The telescope sits in the Chilean desert 760 miles north of the capital Santiago.

Brian Lemaux, an astronomer from University of California, Davis, who co-authored the report, said galaxies become denser as gravity had acted on them over billions of years.

“Superclusters closer to Earth tend to (appear as) a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said Lemaux. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies.”

The research, entitled “The progeny of a Cosmic Titan” will feature in the latest issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.</s>"The Big Bang Theory" is the longest-running multi-cam sitcom o f all time. With 11 seasons under its belt, the beloved CBS sitcom will take its final bow at the end of season 12, sometime in 2019.

Here's where "The Big Bang Theory" cast was at the beginning of the series and where they are now.</s>"The Big Bang Theory" is the longest-running multi-cam sitcom of all time. With 11 seasons under its belt, the beloved CBS sitcom will take its final bow at the end of season 12, sometime in 2019.

Here's where "The Big Bang Theory" cast was at the beginning of the series and where they are now.

Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny, came to "TBBT" with sitcom experience.

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Johnny Galecki, who plays Leonard Hofstadter, was on "Roseanne" first.

Johnny Galecki solidified his place in TV history in the role of experimental physicist Leonard Hofstadter. Galecki was already a TV star before he joined "TBBT" thanks to his role as Roseanne's son-in-law David Healy on "Roseanne."

Galecki will be in an upcoming sitcom spinoff.

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For more great stories, head to INSIDER's homepage.</s>"The Big Bang Theory" is known for going big for Halloween and this year is no exception. Let's take a fly over of this season's costumes with Leonard's Inspector Gadget (Johnny Galecki).</s>There's a lot of stuff out there in the dark, far-flung reaches of the early Universe that we're only just starting to discover. But this one's a real doozy - the early formation of a huge supercluster of galaxies, located 11 billion light-years away - just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.

It's the largest and most massive structure found so early in the Universe, with a mass equivalent to the largest structures found in the Universe today. The evidence suggests it's more massive than one million billion Suns.

Astronomers have nicknamed the behemoth Hyperion, after one of the twelve Titans born to the gods Uranus and Gaia.

"This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang," said astronomer Olga Cucciati of the Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna in Italy.

"Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the Universe was relatively young!"

While estimates put the number of superclusters in the visible Universe at over 10 million, none have been spotted even half as far as Hyperion. It was only earlier this year that the discovery of the most distant supercluster to that date was announced - at a distance of 4 billion light-years away.

Cucciati and her team located the Hyperion proto-supercluster, or supercluster in the process of forming, in the equatorial constellation of Sextans, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope's VIMOS Ultra Deep-field Survey.

Combining this data with redshift data from the zCosmos survey, the team were able to define the 3-dimensional volume of the structure, and study its intricacies.

Hyperion, they discovered, is rather complex. It's similar in size to superclusters closer to Earth (our home supercluster, Virgo, is thought to contain over 47,000 galaxies), although its structure is a bit different. It contains at least seven density peaks, or denser regions, but these are connected by filaments of galaxies.

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to [have] a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features," said astronomer Brian Lemaux of the University of California, Davis.

"But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies."

The difference, the team hypothesise, is that superclusters closer to us have had more time to, well, pull themselves together, so to speak - to more tightly gravitationally bind their galaxies into discrete clumps.

The difference helps us understand supercluster evolution - gradually, over the course of billions of years, Hyperion will likely arrange itself into a similar structure.

"Understanding Hyperion and how it compares to similar recent structures can give insights into how the Universe developed in the past and will evolve into the future, and allows us the opportunity to challenge some models of supercluster formation," Cucciati said.

"Unearthing this cosmic titan helps uncover the history of these large-scale structures."

The team's research will appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, and can be read on pre-print resource arXiv.</s>The Emmy Award-winning comedy legend is returning to The Big Bang Theory for its 12th and final season – and only ET has your first look at what could be his last episode of the series.

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The Big Bang Theory’s final season airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

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Behind the Scenes of Bob Newhart's Return to 'The Big Bang Theory' (Exclusive)</s>Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive galaxy super cluster yet found in the early universe, just over two billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy proto-supercluster, nicknamed Hyperion, was identified using the VIMOS instrument on European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile, said researchers from the University of California, Davis in the US.

Hyperion has a calculated mass more than one million billion times that of the Sun, making it the largest and most massive structure to be found so early in the formation of the universe, they said. “This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over two billion years after the Big Bang,” said Olga Cucciati of Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Italy.

“Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something like this evolved when the universe was relatively young,” Cucciati said. Located in the constellation of Sextans, Hyperion was identified by a novel technique to analyse the vast amount of data obtained from the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey.

The VIMOS instrument can measure the distance to hundreds of galaxies at the same time, making it possible to map the position of galaxies within the forming supercluster in three dimensions. The team found that Hyperion has a very complex structure, containing at least seven high-density regions connected by filaments of galaxies, and its size is comparable to superclusters closer to Earth, though it has a very different structure.

“Superclusters closer to Earth tend to be a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said Brian Lemaux from the University of California, Davis. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies,” Lemaux said.

The contrast between Hyperion and less distant superclusters is most likely due to the fact that nearby superclusters have had billions of years for gravity to gather matter together into denser regions — a process that has been acting for far less time in the much younger Hyperion.

Given its size so early in the history of the universe, Hyperion is expected to evolve into something similar to the immense structures in the local universe such as the superclusters making up the Sloan Great Wall or the Virgo Supercluster that contains our own galaxy, the Milky Way.</s>Motown and soul band Big Bang Beat visits Don Quixote”s for a dance party. Big Bang Beat includes three female lead singers and a three-piece horn section. The group plays tunes from 1960s Motown, 1970s funk, and dance hits from the 1980s, 1990s, and today.

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Cost: $22 general, $36 Gold Circle in advance, $4 more at door</s>Astronomers have spotted a huge structure of galaxies in a remarkable glimpse into our universe's past.

Hyperion, as scientists are calling it, is a proto-supercluster that holds an enormous quantity of mass, more than 1 million billion times the mass of the sun, the discovering astronomical team reports.

It stands as the biggest structure ever to be found from the universe's early years.

It formed only about 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang, or more than about 11 billion years ago.

“It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the universe was relatively young,” said Olga Cucciati, astronomer and first author of the study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things.”

The discovery was made by an astronomical team, led by Cucciati, from Bologna, Italy's National Institute of Astrophysics.

The proto-supercluster's namesake, Hyperion, was a mythological ancient Greek Titan. The Titan was one of the 12 children of the god of Earth Gaia and the god of the sky Uranus. Hyperion and his siblings overthrew Uranus and were later overthrown by the Olympians, including widely-known figures like Zeus.

Hyperion, the proto-supercluster, is bound together by enormous galaxy filaments, knotting together at least seven highly dense parts of the cluster, according to researchers.

The sprawling structure was described as quite different than those closer to Earth.

"Superclusters closer to Earth tend to a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” said University of California at Davis astronomer Brian Lemaux, co-leader of the research team. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies.”

The structure's unusual form could be attributed to its age.

“Understanding Hyperion and how it compares to similar recent structures can give insights into how the Universe developed in the past and will evolve into the future,” Cucciati said. "With the presence of such a huge structure already in formation when the universe was so young, we hope to learn more precisely the role of dark matter at that epoch."

Hyperion was spotted in the COSMOS field of the Sextans constellations.
Astronomers discover Hyperion, an ancient proto-supercluster that appeared 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.