Is The Milky Way In The Virgo Cluster

The Milky Way Galaxy is part of the Local Group, which is located on the Virgo Cluster’s outskirts.

Is Virgo home to the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is located at the center of the Local Group, a collection of galaxies. This 10 million light-year-wide cluster is located on the outskirts of the Local, or Virgo, Supercluster, a collection of galaxy clumps.

What is the Virgo Cluster made up of?

The cluster is made up of spiral and elliptical galaxies in a rather varied mix. The spiral galaxies of the cluster are thought to be dispersed in an oblong prolate filament, roughly four times as long as it is wide, spanning down the line of sight from the Milky Way as of 2004. Elliptical galaxies have a higher center density than spiral galaxies.

The cluster is made up of at least three subclumps: Virgo A, which is focused on M87, Virgo B, which is centered on M49, and Virgo C, which is centered on M60, as well as an LVC (Low Velocity Cloud) subclump, which is centered on the giant spiral galaxy NGC 4216. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration spotted the event horizon of a supermassive black hole in the large elliptical galaxy M87 in 2019.

The dominant subclump, Virgo A, is produced by a mixture of elliptical, lenticular, and (typically) gas-poor spiral galaxies, and has a mass of around 1014 M, which is roughly an order of magnitude greater than the other two.

Is the Milky Way a Virgo Supercluster member?

A supercluster is a massive collection of smaller galaxy clusters or galactic groups that are among the universe’s greatest structures. The Milky Way is a member of the Local Group galaxy group (which includes over 54 galaxies), which is a member of the Virgo Supercluster, which is a member of the Laniakea Supercluster. Superclusters, unlike clusters, grow with the Hubble expansion due to their huge size and low density. There are 10 million superclusters in the observable universe, according to estimates.

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.

Are galaxies in close proximity to one another?

As stars collide with merging supermassive black holes, some will be blasted out of the galaxy, while others will be destroyed. And both galaxies’ delicate spiral structures will be shattered as they merge into a single, massive, elliptical galaxy. However, as terrifying as this seems, such a process is a normal aspect of galactic evolution.

This coming collision has been known to astronomers for some time. This is based on the relative directions and speeds of our and Andromeda’s galaxies. But, more crucially, astronomers observe galaxy collisions on a regular basis when looking out into the universe.

Galaxies circle around a common center and are kept together by mutual gravitation. Interactions between galaxies, particularly between big and satellite galaxies, are fairly common. This is frequently caused by galaxies drifting too close together, to the point that the satellite galaxy’s gravity attracts one of the massive galaxy’s primary spiral arms.

In other situations, the satellite galaxy’s course may cross with that of the main galaxy. Collisions could result in mergers if neither galaxy has enough momentum to continue moving after the collision. If one of the colliding galaxies is substantially larger than the other, the larger galaxy will remain mostly intact and preserve its shape, while the smaller galaxy will be shredded apart and absorbed by the larger galaxy.

In the Virgo Supercluster, how many clusters are there?

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.

What maintains the clusters of galaxies together?

Galaxy clusters are the universe’s largest objects, locked together by their own gravity. They have hundreds or thousands of galaxies, a lot of hot plasma, and a lot of dark matter that isn’t observable. The Perseus Cluster, for example, is one of the most brilliant X-ray sources in the sky, with over a thousand galaxies. The largest galaxies in the known universe reside in galaxy clusters, which supply us with knowledge on the structure of the cosmos on the largest scales.

What is the rate at which Andromeda is approaching the Milky Way?

Unless you seek for it, the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way, isn’t visible in our night sky. However, it can be seen without optical aid under dark skies, but only as a faintly discernible fuzzy patch of light. But, in the far future, Andromeda will shine brightly in our sky, getting larger and brighter… as it approaches us. Despite the fact that our two galaxies are still 2.5 million light-years distant, the eventual merging of our two galaxies has already begun.

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The great extent of galactic halos

At a speed of around 70 miles (113 kilometers) every second, the Andromeda galaxy is speeding toward our Milky Way. With this in mind, our merger will take place in five billion years. However, fresh study released in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal in August 2020 revealed that the collision between our galaxies is already occurring.

The news regarding the Andromeda galaxy comes from Project AMIGA, which looks at the Andromeda galaxy’s deep-space surrounds with the Hubble Space Telescope. AMIGA stands for Andromeda’s Absorption Map of Ionized Gas. It was dubbed by NASA as:

The Andromeda galaxy, our Milky Way, and other galaxies are all engulfed in a huge envelope of gas, dust, and stray stars known as a galactic halo. Galaxies’ halos are extremely faint, so much so that spotting them is difficult. These astronomers calculated the extent of the Andromeda galaxy’s halo by observing how much light from background quasars it absorbed. They were shocked to discover that the halo of the Andromeda galaxy extends far beyond its observable borders.

It reaches half the distance to our Milky Way (1.3 million light-years) and even further in other directions (up to 2 million light-years).

Are the halos touching yet?

So, does this imply that the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies’ halos are colliding?

It turns out that we can’t simply measure the properties of our galaxy’s halo from our vantage point inside the Milky Way. Because the two galaxies are so similar in size and appearance, astronomers believe the Milky Way’s halo will be similar as well.

To put it another way, it’s the faint halos of galaxies that appear to be touching one another. As a result, in a sense, the collision between our two galaxies has already begun.

So what will the Andromeda merger look like?

The photos below were provided by NASA in 2012. They’re artists’ interpretations of what a person on Earth may view when the Andromeda galaxy approaches us.

The images below are based on meticulous Hubble Space Telescope measurements of the Andromeda galaxy’s speed, as well as computer simulations of the two galaxies’ imminent collision. In addition, a series of studies released in 2012 found that our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will merge to form a single large elliptical, or football-shaped, galaxy, rather than glancing off each other as merging galaxies sometimes do.

In February 2022, astronomer Roeland van der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute told Discover Magazine:

It doesn’t matter if it’s a full-on collision or a glancing hit; the ultimate consequence is the same.

Another video of the Andromeda merger

However, this merger will involve more than just the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. The other massive galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies, M33, aka the Triangulum galaxy, will also play a part, as illustrated in the movie below.

The Triangulum galaxy is the smaller object near the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies in the movie below. Although the Triangulum galaxy is unlikely to join the merger, it may collide with our Milky Way at some point as part of a grand cosmic dance with the two larger galaxies.

What happens to stars and planets when galaxies merge?

Throughout the universe, galaxies collide with one another. With the help of large telescopes, astronomers see galactic collisions or their aftermaths. In some senses, when two galaxies combine, they’re like ghosts, passing through each other. This is due to the vast distances between stars within galaxies. As a result, when galaxies merge, the stars themselves rarely collide.

However, the merger will have an impact on stars in both the Andromeda galaxy and our Milky Way. A trillion stars make up the Andromeda galaxy. Meanwhile, there are around 300 billion stars in the Milky Way. Both galaxies’ stars will be flung into new orbits around the newly combined galactic core. According to scientists involved in the 2012 investigations, for example:

Will humanity see the Andromeda merger?

So, how’s everything doing here on Earth? Will life on Earth survive the merger? In around 7.5 billion years, the sun will become a red giant, enlarging to the point that it will destroy the Earth. However, even before that, the sun’s luminosity, or inherent brightness, will rise. This will eventually happen over a four-billion-year time span.

The Earth’s surface temperature will rise as solar radiation reaching the planet increases. We may experience a runaway greenhouse effect similar to that which is already occurring on Venus, our neighboring planet. As a result, there’s a strong chance that earthly life will be extinct by the time the union is completed.

However, at that time, some Earthlings may have developed the ability to travel into space. Perhaps we’ll have fled the planet, if not our entire solar system. We may still see Andromeda colliding with the Milky Way, but from a slightly different vantage point.

The merging of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy has already begun. In 5 billion years, the two spiral galaxies will merge to form a single massive elliptical galaxy.