Researchers discover giant ring-like structure in the universe

• The newly-found ring-shaped feature is large enough to contradict the cosmological principle (CP), which sets a theoretical limit of 1.2 billion light years for the largest structures.
• The researchers assume that the ring could be a projection of a spheroidal structure and we see it nearly face-on because of the small variations of GRB distances around the object's center.
• Although they claim to have found evidence for a regular structure, the apparent shape of this ring is based only on a visual impression. Further studies are needed to reveal whether or not the structure could have been produced by a low-frequency spatial harmonic of the large-scale matter density distribution or of universal star-forming activity.

An image of the distribution of GRBs on the sky at a distance of 7 billion light years, centred on the newly discovered ring. The positions of the GRBs are marked by blue dots and the Milky Way is indicated for reference, running from left to right across the image. Credit: L. Balazs.