Beyond the Zone of Avoidance

Source: New York Times

Astronomers have discovered that there is a vast wall across the southern border of the local cosmos. The South Pole Wall, as it is known, consists of thousands of galaxies — beehives of trillions of stars and dark worlds, as well as dust and gas — aligned in a curtain arcing across at least 700 million light-years of space. It winds behind the dust, gas and stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, from the constellation Perseus in the Northern Hemisphere to the constellation Apus in the far south.

It is so massive that it perturbs the local expansion of the universe.

Special credit to New York Times writer Dennis Overbye for use of the work “festooned” in a scientific article. Well-played, sir.

• “Beyond the Milky Way, a Galactic Wall - New York Times (link)