2024-03-21 08:54:50
If the Milky Way is considered a lightweight, then the newly discovered Einasto supercluster is definitely a heavyweight. This newly discovered giant structure in the universe is regarding 3 billion light-years away from the earth, and its total mass is equivalent to 2,600 trillion times the sun. If a ray of light is emitted from one end of this super galaxy cluster, it will take 360 million years to reach the other end.
We all know that the earth orbits the sun, and the solar system headed by the sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, but the story following that is no longer so well known: in fact, the Milky Way and several other galaxies belong to the Local Galaxy Group. The galaxy group is just one member of the Virgo Supercluster, which contains at least 100 galaxy clusters and galaxy groups. The Virgo Supercluster is still just one of the Laniakea Supercluster with a diameter of 250 million light-years. part.
Superclusters are large-scale structures larger than galaxy clusters and galaxy groups. There are currently regarding 10 million superclusters in the observable universe, of which the Laniakea Supercluster already contains at least 100,000 galaxies. of huge homes.
But the Einasto supercluster newly discovered by the Tartu Observatory team of Tartu University is even larger, with a diameter of an incredible 360 million light-years and an overall mass of 2,600 trillion times the sun (26×1,000,000,000,000,000 times). If Light is emitted from one end of the Einasto supercluster and takes 360 million years to reach the other end of the supercluster.
▲ The newly discovered structure of the Einasto supercluster. (Source: Tatu University)
The astronomical team has always been famous for its research on superclusters, such as determining that the typical mass of a supercluster is 6 million times the mass of the sun, with an average size of 200 million light-years, or imagining that a supercluster is regarding 2,000 times larger than the Milky Way.
They also investigated an additional 662 superclusters, revealing some interesting dynamics inside superclusters. For example, the speed at which galaxies in a supercluster move away from each other is actually slower than the overall expansion rate of the universe.
Why are there differences in expansion rates despite the same universe? The team explained that this is because the gravity of the supercluster is acting as a “brake” to offset the internal expansion. However, this gravity is still not enough to bind the system. Overall, it is only a temporary phenomenon. In the end, dark energy will still cause all galaxies to move away from each other.
In addition, the team also found that there is an inverse square relationship between supercluster density and size, that is, the density of superclusters decreases with the square of size. Although superclusters are huge in mass, they are also distributed over a wide range, resulting in their density actually being lower than Galaxy in general.
new paperPublished in The Astrophysical Journal.
(The first picture is a schematic diagram, source:pixabay）
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