Researchers from The University of Western Australia node at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research have uncovered an immense structure, which spans an astonishing 185,000 light-years between galaxies NGC 4532 and DDO 137, located 53 million light-years from Earth.
The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, also revealed that a vast tail of gas accompanied the bridge, extending 1.6 million light-years, making it the longest-ever observed.
The observations were part of the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Survey which maps the sky and studies the distribution of hydrogen gas in galaxies, using the ASKAP radio telescope.
Co-author and ICRAR UWA astrophysicist Professor Kenji Bekki said researchers discovered the colossal gas formations by using high-resolution observations of neutral hydrogen.
