Overview
- Researchers report one of the longest rotating filaments yet detected, with coherent spin alignment across a razor-thin core of 14 hydrogen-rich galaxies.
- MeerKAT’s MIGHTEE radio survey, paired with DESI and SDSS data, mapped a 5.5-million–light-year core embedded within an extended structure of more than 280 galaxies spanning roughly 50 million light-years.
- Galaxy redshifts show opposite motions on either side of the filament’s spine, consistent with bulk rotation modeled at about 110 km/s.
- The filament appears hydrogen-rich and dynamically cold, indicating a relatively young, undisturbed environment that can channel gas to fuel star formation.
- The finding bears on theories of angular-momentum transfer and intrinsic-alignment modeling for future weak-lensing surveys, while coverage differs on its distance estimate (about 140 vs 440 million light-years).