Himiko is a large gas cloud

Interstellar cloud

Interstellar cloud is the generic name given to an accumulation of gas, plasma and dust in our and other galaxies. Put differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interstellar medium. Depending on the density, size and temperature of a given cloud, the hydrogen in it...

 found at redshift

Redshift

In physics , redshift happens when light seen coming from an object is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum...

 of z=6.6 that predates similar Lyman-alpha blob

Lyman-alpha blob

In astronomy, a Lyman-alpha blob is a huge concentration of a gas emitting the Lyman-alpha emission line. LABs are some of the largest known individual objects in the Universe. Some of these gaseous structures are more than 400,000 light years across...

s. Researchers say it "may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe." It is 12.9 billion light years

Light Years

Light Years is the seventh studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue. It was released on 25 September 2000 by Parlophone and Mushroom Records. The album's style was indicative of her return to "mainstream pop dance tunes"....

 from Earth, or about miles ( kilometers).

Size

It is 55,000 light years across (half the diameter of our galaxy), but is said to "hold more than 10 times as much mass as the next largest object found in the early universe, or roughly the equivalent mass of 40 billion suns", making it the most massive object in the known universe.

Discovery

Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif stated "I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance...[i]t's kind of record-breaking."

Name

The object was named by a Japanese scientist after a 3rd-century Japanese shaman queen Himiko.