The largest thing ever? That's quite the claim.

Astronomers from the University of Central Lancashire, in England, have discovered a collection of luminous and highly radiant quasars that they're saying is the largest known structure in the universe. The large quasar group (LQG) spans almost four billion light-years across at its widest point, Science Daily reports.

Quasars are the brightest known objects in the universe. They tend to assemble in large groups, Space.com says, with the previous record measuring 600 million light-years across. This new discovery, however, is on an entirely different scale.

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The LQG is so large, in fact, that it's challenging the cosmological principle. The principle states that when "viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers" — basically, the universe looks homogenous if you zoom out far enough. But the size of the newly discovered LQG make it a landmark regardless of where you're viewing it from, the report says.

The researchers from the project will publish the remainder of their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In the meantime, watch the video above to learn more.

What was your favorite space discovery of the past year?

Image courtesy of Flickr, ESO/M. Kornmesser, European Southern Observatory