The Virgo Supercluster of galaxies is where Earth is located in the universe. A supercluster is a collection of galaxies bound by gravity. We are in the Local Group, a smaller group of galaxies within this supercluster. The Milky Way is the second biggest galaxy in the Local Group, behind the Milky Way.
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What is the Virgo Supercluster made of?
The Virgo Supercluster (Virgo SC) or Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is a mass concentration of galaxies that includes the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Within its 33 megaparsec diameter, there are at least 100 galaxy groups and clusters (110 million light-years). The Virgo SC is part of the PiscesCetus Supercluster Complex, a galaxy filament, and is one of around 10 million superclusters in the observable universe.
According to a 2014 study, the Virgo Supercluster is just one lobe of Laniakea, a larger, rival referent of the term Local Supercluster centered on the Great Attractor.
In which Local Supercluster does Earth reside?
The Virgo Supercluster, which is 65 million light-years away and encompasses smaller groups and clusters of galaxies, including the Local Group, is centered on the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
Is it possible that our galaxy is part of the Virgo Cluster?
Small groupings merge with larger clusters to form a 110 million light-year-long network of interacting galaxies. The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) is the Centaurus A Group’s brightest member.
What is the size of the Virgo Supercluster in comparison to Earth?
On a bigger scale, distance is something that is quite difficult for most of us to adequately picture in our brains, and this is simply a biological limitation. The routes you take frequently such as to work or school are imprinted in your mind, and you have a good sense of how far it is and how long it will take you to complete them.
Our planet has a radius of around 6,400 kilometers, yet we never travel these great distances across the globe, making it difficult to judge how big Earth is in contrast to human objects. But now we know that we can zoom out of our quaint, picturesque blue dot and see that the Earth is part of a solar system that is about 2 light-years across (consider that light travels at 300 million m/sec for just 8 minutes to reach Earth, so consider traveling this distance for 2 solid years), with planets hundreds of times its size revolving around a star that could swallow them all up several times over. Zooming out, we can see our stellar neighborhood, which is a cluster of star systems that spans 30 light years.
We have the famous Milky Way galaxy if we widen our field of view even further. It measures a whopping a hundred thousand light years in diameter (meaning, it takes light 100,000 years to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other). We can imagine what this looks like because it’s simple to create the cool graphics that you’re probably familiar with, but actually comprehending such a distance is an almost unfathomable feat for the human mind. (I believe that ‘Scale of the Universe’ is the best interactive software for learning about distance on the internet.) Look it up here). Today, though, I’d like you to think about the next level of star structures, which are made up of galaxy clusters. We are part of the ‘Local Group,’ which is a cluster of nearby galaxies, such as M31 (or Andromeda), that span around 10 million light-years.
But what we’re actually interested in is taking it a step farther. The massive cosmic structure I’m talking about is 110 million light years across, encompassing 100 other galaxy clusters including the Sculptor Group, the Maffei Group, and the M81 cluster, and holding nearly 100 billion times the volume of our galaxy (a total of 47,000 galaxies). The Virgo Supercluster is its name.
Millions of superclusters exist across the universe, which combine to form supercluster complexes. These complexes produce large-scale filaments and sheets with a diameter of around a billion light years (each). They make up the universe’s largest structures when combined. The most recent data from deep space telescopes suggests that these fundamental structures are arranged in a honeycomb or bubble-like pattern, and the observations may provide insight into the Universe’s early beginnings.
The Virgo Cluster, which contains 2000 galaxies, is located 55 million to 65 million light years away and serves as the supercluster’s center pivot (hence the term ‘Virgo Supercluster’). Our supercluster, like many others, is created in the shape of a rough disk; the bulk of galaxies are in this plane, but only approximately a third of them are arranged in a halo-like structure surrounding it. The Local Group appears to be towards one edge of the Virgo Supercluster, and we appear to be circling around the plane’s center at about 400,000m/s, according to studies. The 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) attempts to provide us a better knowledge of the supercluster’s distribution of galaxies, as well as other aspects like as the formation’s size, shape, and mass (which is estimated to be around 10,000,000,000,000,000 solar masses).
The most remarkable fact about the supercluster, in my opinion, is that the gravitational tug between galaxies and clusters will have brought it all together into a single, gigantic, writhing mass of stars in 100 billion years. Other superclusters will be converging at the same time, separated by billions of light years due to the Universe’s expansion. However, you may be aware that astronomers have seen an odd movement of galaxy clusters within the supercluster. Many are heading towards the direction of the Norma Cluster, but due to the vast amount of material in the Milky Way’s plane, it’s impossible to discern why. Due of its mysterious tug, this has been nicknamed the ‘Great Attractor’ for the time being. Dark flow, a mystery force tugging on galaxy clusters from beyond the span of the observable universe, could be the cause.
More investigation into these formations will undoubtedly reveal many more of their secrets, and solving those mysteries may provide answers to some of our Universe’s most profound questions. How did it all start? What’s more, where is it going?
If you liked this post, you might also like “Ten of the Universe’s Most Fascinating Structures.”
Is the Laniakea Supercluster part of the Virgo Supercluster?
The Milky Way galaxy is found on the edges of the Laniakea Supercluster, which is around 520 million light-years across, according to Tully and colleagues’ new 3D map. About 100,000 galaxies make up the supercluster, which has a combined mass of about 100 million billion times that of the sun.
Nawa’a Napoleon, a Hawaiian language instructor at Kapiolani Community College in Hawaii, suggested the name Laniakea. The name honors Polynesian navigators who used their knowledge of the stars to accomplish long expeditions over the Pacific Ocean’s vastness.
The Virgo cluster and Norma-Hydra-Centaurus, often known as the Great Attractor, are part of this supercluster. These new findings shed light on the role of the Great Attractor, which has baffled astronomers for the past 30 years. The motions of galaxies are steered inward within the Laniakea Supercluster, like water flowing in lowering courses down a valley, and the Great Attractor functions like a vast flat-bottomed gravitational valley with a sphere of attraction that spreads across the Laniakea Supercluster.
“To explain our local motion, we probably need to measure to another factor of three in distance,” Tully added. “We’re considering it as a serious possibility that we’ll have to come up with a new moniker for something bigger than we are a part of.”
The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature on September 4th.
What is the name of our galaxy’s supercluster?
The Virgo Cluster, Local Group, and, by extension, our galaxy, the Milky Way, are all part of the Laniakea Supercluster. It contains our galaxy, the Milky Way, as well as the Local Group. It is also known as the Local Supercluster because it contains the Virgo Cluster around its core.
What is the name of the supercluster that surrounds Earth?
Planet Earth appears to be everything but exceptional on the grandest cosmic scales. We orbit our parent star like hundreds of billions of other planets in our galaxy; we spin about the galaxy like hundreds of billions other solar systems; and we’re joined together in either a group or cluster of galaxies like the bulk of galaxies in the Universe. And, like other galactic groups and clusters, we’re a small part of a larger structure called a supercluster, which contains over 100,000 galaxies. Ours is called Laniakea, which is Hawaiian meaning “infinite heaven.”
What holds the galaxies of the Virgo Supercluster together?
When we look at our own neighborhood, we can see that there are about 3,000 galaxies that make up the large-scale structure that includes ourselves, Virgo, Leo, and many more nearby clusters. The dense Virgo cluster is the largest part of it, accounting for about a third of the total mass, but there are many other mass concentrations within it, including our own local group (shown in blue below), which are linked together by the invisible force of gravity and unseen dark matter filaments.
In the Virgo Supercluster, how many galaxies are there?
The Virgo Cluster is a tiny cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo, with a center distance of 53.8 0.3 Mly (16.5 0.1 Mpc). The cluster is the heart of the larger Virgo Supercluster, of which the Local Group (which contains our Milky Way galaxy) is a part. It has around 1,300 (and maybe up to 2,000) member galaxies. The Virgocentric flow is how the Local Group perceives the mass of the Virgo Supercluster. The mass of the Virgo Cluster is estimated to be 1.2.