Talk:Hyperion proto-supercluster

What does "earliest" mean?

This comment is replying to a question posed by EEng. The discoverer said "This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang" (ref #2/ESO press release), so I think the answer is: cosmologically earliest. Bri.public (talk) 21:53, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

The the lead should should be clear about that. I'm on my phone so I'll leave that to you. And isn't a down-to-earth (so to speak) way of saying that simply oldest? EEng 22:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

It's important to clarify that what's oldest is not the structure but our view of it, if I'm understanding correctly. Rotcaeroib (talk) 15:34, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I attempted to clarify in the article; at its present age it is not a proto- supercluster anymore. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

"Earliest" refers to the cosmological age, not the time of discovery. The article makes this claim in the lead but it isn't really backed up in the body or cited anywhere. If it was explained in the body, perhaps with a few more words and a reference, it would perhaps be clearer - or maybe someone can reword the lead. "Oldest", "earliest", and "most distant", are in many respects the same thing here (at these large redshifts, the age of an object that we observe is essentially determined by how far away it is and vice-versa), but not exactly. To avoid confusions related to relative timeframes, cosmologists tend to refer to the age relative to the big bang rather than to us now, hence "early" is "old". Also, small differences between very large numbers (large age of the object, large age of the universe) become critical, so it is safer and easier to follow if we just use small numbers since the big bang. Lithopsian (talk) 21:45, 22 November 2018 (UTC)