What is the most likely explanation of the Great Attractor?

The Great Attractor is thought to be at the gravitational center of the Laniakea supercluster—of which the Milky Way is but one galaxy of 100,000 others. One theory is that it’s a confluence of dark energy. Another is that it might be caused by over-density, an area of dense mass with an intense gravitational pull.

Is the Great Attractor an object?

THE GREAT ATTRACTOR MYSTERY The greatattractor is not an object but a instead point in the centre of the supercluster of galaxies in which our Milky Way sits, Dr Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, said in an article for. But exactly what is dragging the Milky Way has been unknown for years.

Is the expansion of the universe stronger than the Great Attractor?

Dark energy and the present expansion of the Universe is not only stronger than the attractive pull of the local supercluster, it’s not even a contest. The peculiar velocity, or the departure from the Hubble expansion, is only about 20\% of what it would need to be to bind us to this large structure.

Where is the Great Attractor?

Laniakea Supercluster
The Great Attractor is “an apparent gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space at the center of the local Laniakea Supercluster,” in which the Milky Way is located.

What do we know about the Great Attractor?

The Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space and the apparent central gravitational point of the Laniakea Supercluster. The observed anomalies suggest a localized concentration of mass millions of times more massive than the Milky Way.

How did we discover the Great Attractor?

The Great Attractor was first discovered in the 1970s when astronomers made detailed maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (the light left over from the early universe), and noticed that it was slightly (and “slightly” here means less than one one-hundredth of a degree Fahrenheit) warmer on one side of the Milky Way …

How strong is the Great Attractor?

Whatever this Great Attractor is, it is so powerful that it has a mass capable of pulling millions and millions of stars towards it. Our own galaxy is moving towards this anomaly at a whopping 1,342,162 miles per hour. If the Earth moved that fast around the Sun, our years would only be 18 days long.

What is inside the Great Attractor?

What we found was a large supercluster of galaxies in the area of the Great Attractor, known as the Norma Cluster. It has a mass of about 1,000 trillion Suns.

What is our galaxy attracted to?

The Milky Way galaxy is made of billions of stars, and gas and dust, all bound together by mutual gravitational attraction, as well as a lot of dark matter. The diameter of our galaxy is about 100,000 light years [e1] across (the visible material at least – the dark matter halo goes beyond that).

Are we moving towards the Great Attractor?

The Great Attractor itself is moving towards the Shapley Supercluster. Recent astronomical studies by a team of South African astrophysicists revealed a supercluster of galaxies, termed the Vela Supercluster, in the Great Attractor’s theorized location.