The newly discovered cluster predates its other discovered "brothers" by at least three million years and may help scientists build more precise models of the evolution of galaxies in their early stages.

Axar.az informs citing Sputnik.

A group of astronomers from around the world has managed, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, to discover the largest and oldest galaxy cluster, or to be more precise — a proto-supercluster, called Hyperion.

It consists of thousands of galaxies and is currently in the infancy of its formation. Hyperion is considered to be the oldest among the forming superclusters and supposedly predates others by at least three million years.

The lead author of the study devoted to the Hyperion proto-supercluster, Olga Cucciati of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Bologna, noted in a research paper that it could help better understand how such clusters evolve in their early stages and how the process is affected by the large-scale structure of the universe.