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.
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Is there a difference between the Virgo Cluster and the Local Group?
R. Brent Tully reported the findings of his investigation into the underlying structure of the LS in a detailed 1982 paper. It is made up of two parts: a flattened disk that holds two-thirds of the supercluster’s luminous galaxies, and a roughly spherical halo that holds the remaining one-third. The disk is a thin (one millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth Astronomers have been able to compare the LS to other superclusters thanks to data from the 5-year Two-degree-Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dF), which was released in June 2003. The LS is a typical small-scale supercluster that is deficient (i.e., lacks a high density core). It is surrounded by filaments of galaxies and poor groups, with one rich galaxy cluster in the center. The Local Group is a tiny filament stretching from the Fornax Cluster to the Virgo Cluster on the fringes of the LS. The volume of the Virgo Supercluster is roughly 7000 times that of the Local Group, or 100 billion times that of the Milky Way.
What is the size of the Virgo Supercluster?
It’s time to broaden your horizons and study the Universe’s greatest structures: superclusters, which are huge groups of galaxies. There is nothing in the Universe that is bigger. The Virgo Supercluster is the supercluster in which we reside. It’s a massive cluster of over a million galaxies that stretches across a 110 million light-year swath of space.
Our Sun is one of the Milky Way’s members, and the Milky Way is part of the Local Group, a collection of galaxies. The Milky Way, Andromeda, and the Triangulum Galaxy are all huge spiral galaxies, with a few hundred dwarf galaxies thrown in for good measure. The Virgo Cluster has several members, including the Local Group. This galaxy cluster spans 15 million light-years and contains 1200-2000 galaxies. The Virgo Cluster is thus merely one of the Virgo Supercluster’s clusters.
Although astronomers realized we were among a supercluster of galaxies in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the Virgo Supercluster’s shape was sketched out; it has a flattened disk, similar to our own galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is an outlying group of the Virgo Supercluster, and our Virgo Cluster is one of them.
Is the Virgo Cluster a dense one?
A somewhat rich cluster of galaxies is the Virgo cluster (seen in the image below). There are around 2000 galaxies in it, including M87, a large elliptical galaxy. The Virgo cluster is around 15 million light-years away and has a diameter of 3 million light-years. The Virgo cluster encompasses a vast patch of the sky, around 10 degrees wide, because it is the closest rich cluster to us.
The Coma cluster (located in the constellation Coma Berenices) is an example of a massive galaxy cluster.
Around 10,000 galaxies make up the Coma cluster. It’s around 90 million kilometers away and has a diameter of 5 million kilometers.
There are many elliptical galaxies in rich clusters, but just a few spiral galaxies. (In poorclusters like the Local Group, spiral galaxies are common.) There are normally one, two, or three large elliptical galaxies around the center of a rich cluster of galaxies, each containing up to a trillion stars. Like bloated spiders towards the core of their web, these massive galaxies lie near the center of the cluster.
When you gaze at a cluster with visible light, you see mostly the stars that it includes. Clusters, on the other hand, include more than just stars. Rich clusters, for example, include highly hotgas scattered equally across the cluster, according to X-ray studies. (Because the gas is so hot, individual atoms fly faster than a galaxy’s escape velocity.) The Comacluster is thought to have around six times the mass of stars in very hot gas. Furthermore, the fast speeds of galaxies detected within rich clusters indicate that the clusters must include dark matter. (The clusters would have disintegrated billions of years ago if there had been no dark matter to anchor the galaxies.) Dark matter is believed to make up nearly six times the mass of very hot gas in the Coma cluster. As a result, the stellar galaxies visible in an image of a rich cluster represent just around 2% of the cluster’s total mass!
Is the Virgo Cluster visible?
The stars of the Big Dipper can be used to find Arcturus and Spica. The arc of the Dipper’s handle forms a curving line that leads to Arcturus and eventually Spica. These are the brightest stars along this imaginary line, and they’re easy to see even in less-than-ideal lighting.
With Arcturus and Spica, Denebola, Beta Leonis, forms a roughly equilateral triangle. It marks the tail of the celestial Lion and is located east of Regulus, Leo’s brightest star. The Sickle, a backward question mark formed by some of Leo’s brightest stars and resembling the Lion’s head and mane, is easily identified. Regulus is the brightest and easternmost of the three stars that form a triangle on the other side of Leo, while Denebola is the brightest and easternmost of the three stars that form a triangle on the other side of Leo.
Denebola has a visual magnitude of 2.1 and is a white A-type main sequence star. It’s also a member of the Great Diamond asterism, which includes Arcturus, Spica, and Cor Caroli, the brightest star in the Canes Venatici constellation. Between Denebola and the brighter Regulus, five other famous Messier galaxies can be found: Messier 65, Messier 66, Messier 105, Messier 95, and Messier 96.
The Spring Triangle’s Vindemiatrix, Epsilon Virginis, is near the center. With an apparent magnitude of 2.8, it is a yellow G-type massive star. After Spica and Porrima, it is the third brightest star in Virgo.
In the region between Vindemiatrix and Denebola, the Virgo Cluster galaxies can be viewed. The spring is the greatest time of year to observe galaxies from northern latitudes.
What are the three most massive galaxies?
Our cosmos contains hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of galaxies of various forms and sizes. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is a long way away for most of them. Most are too far away to see without binoculars or a telescope at billions of light-years away. Our Local Group, on the other hand, is unique. Within the wide cosmos, it is made up of our nearby galaxies. The galaxies in the Local Group are all within a 5 million light-year radius of us. The diameter of the Local Group as a whole is around 10 million light-years. In the Local Group, our Milky Way is one of three big galaxies. However, it is not the most massive of the Local Group galaxies. The Andromeda galaxy is what I’m referring to. The Triangulum galaxy, the third and smallest of the three big galaxies, is the smallest of the three. The Local Group also contains about 50 dwarf galaxies. So, in our universe, is the Local Group considered a huge structure? Both yes and no. Continue reading to find out more.
The Local Group galaxies are relatively close to us on the enormous astronomical distance scale. Instead of billions of light-years, they’re simply millions. As a result, some Local Group galaxies can be seen without a telescope from a dark location.
According to the diagram above, our Milky Way galaxy is in the core of the Local Group. Of course, it doesn’t, but the image is set up in that way to honor our human perspective. The Local Group, on the other hand, does have a gravitational center. The Andromeda Galaxy is located between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.
Our Local Group is also on the margins of a massive supercluster of galaxies known as the Virgo Supercluster, according to astronomers.
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What’s bigger than the Local Group?
A group of galaxies known as the Local Group. It spans a distance of 10 million light-years. However, gravity has an endless range, despite being the weakest of the four fundamental forces of existence. It’s no surprise, then, that astronomers detect groupings of galaxies on both small and big scales when looking out into space. They believe that groups like the Local Group are part of far larger structures.
The Virgo Supercluster contains at least 100 galaxy groupings and clusters, including our Local Group. This massive supercluster, often known as our “local” supercluster, is estimated to measure 110 million light-years in diameter.
In 2014, astronomers reported that the Virgo Supercluster itself could be a member of a larger structure known as the Laniakea Supercluster. They estimated that the bigger supercluster consists of 100,000 galaxies spread across 520 million light-years. Astronomers at the time identified this massive supercluster as one of several such structures found in space.
However, a group of astronomers discovered a few years later that the galaxies in the Laniakea Supercluster are not gravitationally bound. So, rather than maintaining itself as a bound item, they predicted that this cluster would spread over time.
Will it be successful? We still don’t know for sure. What we do know is that gravity is at work throughout our cosmos, forming galaxies in space. Our Local Group is simply one example of how galaxies tend to gather – although one that we find fascinating.
Big, bigger, biggest?
The Local Group of galaxies is made up of three major galaxies the Andromeda Galaxy (largest), our Milky Way Galaxy (second largest), and the Triangulum Galaxy (third largest) as well as 50 or so dwarf galaxies.
What is the name of our galaxy cluster?
Our galaxy is situated on the outskirts of a supercluster in the Local Group, a compact galaxy cluster. There are 36 galaxies in the Local Group. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of the larger ones. The Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud are its closest neighbors.
Which is more massive, a supercluster or a galaxy?
The Universe appears to be a gigantic cosmic network on the biggest scales. Stars form galaxies, which are then gathered into galactic groups. Galaxy clusters are formed when many groups are bound together, and clusters occasionally merge to form even larger clusters. Superclusters appear to be the largest structures of all, spanning hundreds of millions or possibly billions of light years in diameter. Laniakea, our own supercluster, has over 100,000 galaxies, making it more than 10 times richer than the greatest known clusters. These superclusters, on the other hand, appear to be little more than formations. Individual components of superclusters are being pushed apart as the Universe ages, revealing that they aren’t genuine formations after all.
How small is the tiniest supercluster?
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.
What does it mean to live in a rich galaxy?
Rich and poor individuals can coexist in the same city. However, the richness of a city does not always designate it as rich or poor. Some cities have a lot of culture or other things to offer.
Wealth does not distinguish between rich and poor galaxy clusters. Instead, those phrases refer to a measure of a galaxy cluster’s population.
A rich galaxy cluster contains more than a thousand galaxies, whereas a poor galaxy cluster contains less than a thousand galaxies. A poor galaxy cluster is also referred to as a group.
The Milky Way Galaxy is part of the Local Group, which is a group of a few dozen galaxies that includes our own galaxy.
The center of a rich cluster is usually densely packed with galaxies. Consider New York Metropolis: it’s a large city, but it’s densely populated in the heart. Rich clusters frequently have one or more enormous elliptical galaxies in their centers, same to how great towns have giant skyscrapers at their centers.
A poor cluster could take up the same amount of space as a rich cluster, but with fewer galaxies. This clearly indicates that the galaxies are far away, similar to how dwellings in a rural community are separated by huge distances.