You have probably heard about HeavenFor many people, this concept is completely new, even though it was discovered only in 2014. It's a supercluster of galaxies that has become the largest structure we can observe in the observable universe. It's the limit of our current observational and study capabilities. Beyond Laniakea, there's nothing, since the light hasn't had enough time to reach any greater distance.
In this article, we'll tell you which galaxies and galaxy groups are part of Laniakea, their characteristics, and their importance.
What is Laniakea?
Laniakea is a cluster of galaxies that It consists of about 100.000 galaxies, which of course includes the Milky Way. The name Laniakea means "immeasurable sky" in Hawaiian, which is the more appropriate description for this super cluster with a diameter of 500 million light-years and a mass equivalent to 10 trillion trillion suns.
Galaxies are grouped together and, on the largest scales, are strung together in bright filaments that, when they intersect, create giant superclusters whose movement is influenced by gravity.
Within Laniakea, the first supercluster of its size mapped by astronomers, galaxies flow towards a region called the Great Attractor, which represents a kind of vast gravitational valley where the Milky Way is located, in measurements of the velocities of the galaxies.
What galaxies are part of Laniakea?
Within Laniakea, there are several groups of galaxies that are held together by the force of mutual gravity. One of the best known groups of galaxies within Laniakea is the Local Group. The Local Group includes the Milky Way, Andromeda, and several other smaller galaxies. These galaxies are gravitationally linked to each other and move around a common center of mass.
In addition to the Local Group, Laniakea also contains other galaxy clusters, such as the Virgo Cluster. The Virgo Cluster is a massive cluster that is home to numerous galaxies and lies at the end of one of the Laniakea galactic filaments.
Laniakea itself is an immense and complex structure, spanning vast distances in space. Laniakea has been found to be not a typical supercluster and is constantly expanding, due to the influence of gravitational forces from other regions of the universe.
This supercluster is adjacent to the Perseus-Pisces supercluster and 6 million other superclusters in the direction of the Shapley supercluster, and is close to other regions such as Hercules, Coma, and Perseus-Pisces.
Laniakea connects our own giant star cluster, the Virgo Cluster, a cluster of 1300 to 2000 galaxies in all, with Centaurus, the Great Attractor, the Norma cluster, and many others. You can find out more about the galaxy in the article about the milky way.
Until 2014, the Virgo Cluster was thought to belong to the Virgo Supercluster, however it is now known to be part of the Laniakea Galaxy. The members of Laniakea are not all gravitationally bound, so they may end up drifting apart over time.
What group does the Milky Way belong to?
The Milky Way belongs to a small group of galaxies known as the Local Group of galaxies, which has about 30 galaxies, Although the number has not been determined, it could be higher; many of these galaxies exist in galaxy clusters.
The Local Group of galaxies is part of a larger cluster of galaxies called the Virgo Cluster, the Virgo Supercluster, whose center of gravity is a massive attractor toward our Local Group of galaxies, one of the galaxy groups in the observable universe. Between them, these galaxies are bound together into star clusters due to gravitational forces. To learn more about galaxy clusters, you can visit the content related to the cosmic web.
There are many local galaxy clusters, the three largest of which are the Milky Way, Andromeda, and the Triangulum Galaxy. The remaining galaxies are considered satellite galaxies; there are more than 42 satellite galaxies in the Local Group, one of the most famous satellite galaxies being the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The Magellanic Clouds are two dwarf galaxies that are part of the Local Group of galaxies, the larger one is known as the Large Magellanic Cloud and the smaller one is known as the Small Magellanic Cloud.
Originally thought to orbit the Milky Way, however, some studies seem to rule out this possibility. The Magellanic Clouds have fascinated observers in the southern hemisphere for thousands of years, but Europeans knew little about them until the discovery of telescopes.
The astronomer's observations allowed him to identify a large number of stars, opening up new opportunities to study stellar evolution and the dynamics of galaxies and variable stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
How do galaxies form?
When matter formed at the beginning of the universe, it was not evenly distributed, with some regions denser than others, and while the variation wasn't too great, it was enough that as space expanded, gravity caused some places to move. contain more mass falling on itself, attracting the surrounding mass, the largest clumps of dark matter and ordinary matter began to form the clusters that formed what we now know as galaxies.
A gas made of ordinary matter cools many of these clumps enough to form compact objects such as stars, planets, and even black holes, although information about what happened first is still very vague, and the truth is that each galaxy formed at from a black hole. Based on feeding on gas, its mass can reach millions of times the mass of the Sun.
I hope this information helps you learn more about the galaxies and galaxy groups that make up Laniakea.
