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Great Attractor– a large gravitational anomaly of the Universe in the constellation Naugolnik: description, characteristics, mass, distance, map of clusters, influence.

There is a region in outer space where everything attracts. Unfortunately, it is located on the opposite side of our Milky Way galaxy, and is therefore inaccessible for observation. But what kind of object is this?

Let's follow our movement, because the Universe is devoid of statics, and all objects strive somewhere. Planet Earth rotates around, and the solar system itself rushes through space at a speed of 2.2 million km/h. But where? Are we just going in circles? Or is it an ellipse? Maybe there are more circles then? And what happens in them?

Well, let's forget about circles and ellipses. The Milky Way and other galaxies are moving, but to a specific place. It is located 150 million light years away. And although we do not see what we are dealing with, it has a name - Great Attractor(The Great Center of Attraction).

Click on the image to enlarge it

Why can't he be seen? It’s just that the Great Attractor is hiding in the “avoidance zone” of the galaxy. This is an area with a lot of dust and gas, which obscures the view. But we notice that all objects tend to this point, which means there is something there. Moreover, it must be a massive object or something that we have not yet encountered.

For the first time about Great Attractor started talking seriously in the 1970s. Of course, no one could see anything in visible light. But instruments that capture infrared and X-ray radiation have evolved. And what did they finally find? It was a huge supercluster of galaxies in the region of the Great Attractor. Now it is called the Angle Cluster, whose mass reaches a trillion solar (accommodates thousands of galaxies).

Although the Angle Cluster is massive and galaxies are heading towards it, this still does not describe the whole picture. The mass of the Great Attractor does not reach such a value as to also support such a thrust. And here is the most interesting thing. If you follow the local galaxies and the Attractor itself, you can see that they are also drawn to something else. This is the Shapley Supercluster, within which 8000 galaxies coexist, and the mass is 10 million billion solar. Within a billion light years, it is the most massive galaxy cluster.

In space travel, it is not us, but gravity that chooses the path. We are moving towards the Great Attractor. Although it may sound scary, this is an ordinary galactic collection that simply cannot be seen.

About four decades ago, astronomers learned that the galaxy in which Planet Earth is located, called the Milky Way, was moving through space much faster than expected. The speed of the Milky Way is 2.2 million kilometers per hour, which is 2500 times the speed of a cruising airliner, 55 times the escape velocity relative to Earth (ESV is the minimum speed required for a body to escape gravity), and even two and a half times more than its own second escape velocity. However, what gives rise to such a movement remains a mystery.

Galaxy motion theory

The Big Bang theory states that every point in the Universe must move in a direction away from every other point. Regardless, the galaxies on either side of the Milky Way should be moving at the same recessional speed, which should result in no net motion from the Milky Way's perspective. Net motion can occur due to irregularities in the distribution of matter, such as massive clusters of galaxies. The additional gravitational pull of these clusters could slow down or even reverse the expansion of the Universe in their immediate vicinity.

Great Attractor

But in the direction of movement of the Milky Way there are no visible clusters of galaxies. There is a small excess of galaxies in relative proximity, as well as excess radiation visible through X-ray telescopes. However, nothing that could be significant enough to explain the acceleration of the Milky Way. So what's going on? Is it excessive dark matter density? Or is the current theory of the origin of mass and motion incorrect? Astronomer Alan Dressler used the first theory, calling the lack of concentration of matter the "Great Attractor."

Another explanation

However, another explanation could be that the suspected location of the matter shortage is not too far from the direction of motion of the Coalsack Nebula, located deep in the Milky Way. Could the Milky Way itself be moving through space like a rotating disk, obscuring the source of a distant gravitational attractor? Could there be a supermassive galaxy cluster that cannot be detected because it is obscured by a dense layer of dust generated by the Milky Way? But here it is worth considering that the mass of such a cluster of galaxies should be equivalent to ten thousand Andromeda galaxies.

Parkes multibeam receiver and its uses

In the late nineties, a team of scientists began using the innovative instrument in conjunction with the famous Parkes telescopes. This instrument is known as a Parkes multibeam receiver. The unique sensitivity and field of view of this receiver allowed scientists to make much more sensitive and detailed radio surveys of the sky. These surveys were carried out as follows: the receiver was turned to what is known as the 21 cm neutral hydrogen line. And although this line was quite weak, the sensitivity of the receiver was so high that even such studies carried out blindly could detect thousands of galaxies.

First study of the new order

Moreover, at radio waves, radiation passes directly through the layer of dust formed by the Milky Way. Finally, the galaxy became transparent, and scientists were able to see what was hidden behind this dense layer of dust. HIPASS is the first such survey to include a shallow, all-sky survey of the southern hemisphere. In addition, HIPASS was the first sensitive survey of the sky through extragalactic hydrogen ever taken with any telescope. However, nothing unexpected was discovered behind the layer of dust.

Other studies

Other similar studies conducted by this team of scientists have focused on the Milky Way itself, rather than what lies beyond it. In these studies, only a slight overdensity of galaxies was observed. But even then it was clear that more detailed research and observations were needed. Various theoretical models are only considered if nothing is within 200 million light years. Therefore, a long series of deeper observations of the Universe located beyond the disk of the Milky Way were carried out - and again the Parkes telescope was used for this.

Research results

These studies were completed in the mid-2000s. Due to additional complications in analyzing the radio data obtained from the Milky Way (particularly due to noise created by cosmic rays in the galaxy itself), as well as the dispersed nature of the team, it took scientists several more years to fully analyze the data and publish it . As a result, they were only published last year. A total of 883 galaxies have been discovered beyond the dusty disk of the Milky Way - and another 77 located to the north of the Milky Way. Only a few of these galaxies had previously been observed to have optical redshifts, so only their distances could be known.

The Great Attractor Remains a Mystery

However, when the data obtained from studies using infrared instruments was examined and compared with previously obtained data, it turned out that about eighty percent of the galaxies were confirmed due to stellar analogues. The remaining twenty percent are too deep in the Milky Way to confirm their presence using currently available optical and infrared telescopes. The discovery of so many never-before-seen galaxies was exciting. But the Great Attractor was not discovered. Yes, new galaxies and clusters of galaxies have been found. But nothing discovered could explain the accelerated movement of the Milky Way. Therefore, the Great Attractor that pulls the Milky Way toward itself remains a mystery. However, this does not mean that you should not be happy about what has been done. Scientists have discovered a huge number of new galaxies - and this can be compared to how researchers on Earth studied new territories, adding them to the map. Only in this case can galaxies be added to the map under the general name Universe.

The Great Attractor, or superattraction

At the beginning of the last decade of the last century, astronomers discovered that galaxies fly apart in outer space not individually, but in huge clusters, like flocks of birds during migration. Thus, the Milky Way, together with galaxies in the constellation Virgo, in company with a supercluster of galaxies in the constellation Coma Berenices, and also together with other huge masses of cosmic matter, rushes at a speed of 600 kilometers per second in the direction of some unidentified, but unimaginably powerful source of gravity. Calculations show that the total mass of this object is equal to the mass of approximately ten thousand large galaxies.

American astronomer Alan Dressler, who called the mysterious, everything-absorbing invisible object the Great Attractor

And almost half of the matter of our entire Universe is drawn into this gigantic and at the same time strange “pool”. And over many billions of years, so much matter has probably accumulated in this bottomless universal “well” that no one would even dare to name its approximate amount. Trying to find at least some acceptable comparison, this bottomless “abyss” can be conditionally called a black hole in the center of our Galaxy.

The famous American astronomer Alan Dressler called this mysterious, absorbing everything and everyone invisible object the Great Attractor, or the Great Source of Attraction (English “attraction” means “gravity”). However, it has not yet been possible to see anything in that endless distance where our material world is rushing at great speed.

At first, trying to determine the nature of this object, scientists put forward several hypotheses. So, according to one of them, the Great Attractor is an accumulation of a new, unknown to science, type of matter. Proponents of another hypothesis argued that this is nothing more than a “cosmic string” that arose in the “infancy years” of our Universe.

However, subsequent studies revealed that the Great Attractor is a giant cluster of galaxies. From it to the Milky Way is approximately 300 million light years. The Great Attractor is located in the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. It stretches from the constellations Pavo and Indian to the constellation Velas.

It should be noted that galaxies move not in one, but in many different directions. That is, there is complete chaos in space. And this situation leads to the fact that collisions in space often occur not only of single galaxies, but also of their clusters.

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The Great Attractor (Great Center of Gravity) is a stunning gravitational anomaly, this grandiose object is located approximately 65 Mpc or 250 million light years from Earth in the constellation Angle.

The Great Attractor, with the mass of thousands of the masses of the Milky Way, is quite possibly a huge black hole, according to one popular version.

How the Great Attractor was discovered

They discovered and proved its existence by indirect evidence, this influence on galaxies, they move around one center, like planets around the sun, the location was calculated based on the densest area where the largest number of galaxies are collected, but direct observation is difficult due to the location of the Solar system, and this is the very edge, imagine a disk, so here we are at the tip of the disk and the Great Attractor is in the center, and in order to see it we need to look through the material of which the disk consists, which is not possible. (cm. ).

Those galaxies that are too close to the gravitational anomaly move towards it at a speed of 491±200 kilometers per second and are possibly swallowed up.

Video about the Great Attractor

The hypothesis about the existence of the Great Attractor was expressed in 1986

The Great Attractor is an integral part of Laniakea, and is located. The Local Supercluster (including the Local Group) is in the zone of gravitational influence of the gravitational anomaly; The Virgo cluster and the Local Group, in addition to mutual motion, are moving at a speed of 600 km/s towards the Great Attractor. At the same time, the Local Group is also in the zone of attraction of the Perseus-Fornax supercluster, and scientists are trying to determine which of these astronomical objects will pull it over.

Our Solar System is not in danger of being swallowed up by a gravitational anomaly, fortunately or not, but it is moving away from the attractor.

The mass of the anomaly is about 5·10 16 solar masses, but the mass of visible matter in that region is at least 10 times less; It is believed that the bulk of the mass is dark matter.

It was predicted that the Center of the Great Attractor lies on the line connecting the constellations Centaurus and Pavo.

The orbital telescope "" discovered the spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 in the constellation Nagon, which is being destroyed by the Attractor. In addition to the fantastic destruction of the galaxy, observing this process will provide valuable information and a more complete understanding of the processes that create such large-scale space objects.

Some scientists have suggested that objects similar to the Great Attractor are not exceptional and their number in outer space tends to reach millions.

The Great Attractor is a huge mass of matter located at a distance of 250 million light years from the Milky Way.

general review

Briefly about the main thing

The Great Attractor is located in the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. It extends from the constellations Pavo and Indian to the constellation Velas. Its mass approximately reaches 5 × 10 * 16 masses of our Sun. At the center of the Attractor is a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Angulus, but it is almost completely hidden by the Milky Way. In the vicinity of the Great Attractor there are many large galaxies, together they influence other superclusters with their gigantic attraction.

Mysterious structure in the Universe

Review of galaxy clusters and superclusters 2MASS. The Great Attractor is indicated at the bottom right.

Observing the Great Attractor is difficult in the optical range. The plane of the Milky Way is responsible for numerous bright stars and dust that make it difficult to observe.

The speed of movement of our Local Group of galaxies is 44% due to the influence of the Great Attractor, and the rest is due to the global attraction of the local Universe. To be precise, the Great Attractor itself is moving in the direction of the Shapley supercluster, which is 4 times its mass!

Laniakea Supercluster and Attractor

Laniakea is a group of superclusters with a size of 150 Mpc. The blue dot in the center is Us.

I advise you to look at the three-dimensional visualization of the Laniakea supercluster, which was presented by astronomers in 2014. The Laniakea Supercluster includes the Virgo Supercluster, which contains our home galaxy, the Milky Way. You can imagine the entire area of ​​this Laniakea supercluster as a valley, which is surrounded by mountains from which streams flow down to the very bottom. The lowest point of this valley is the Great Attractor, which is the heart of Laniakea and its center of gravity.