Virgo Supercluster
|
|
The Virgo Supercluster or Local Supercluster is the supercluster of galaxies that contains the Local Group and with it our galaxy, the Milky Way. It has the pancake-like shape of a flattened disk, with a diameter of about 200 million light years. It contains about 100 groups and clusters of galaxies and is dominated by the Virgo cluster near its center. The Local Group is located near the edge and is drawn towards the Virgo cluster.
By tracking its gravitational effect on the movement of galaxies, one can estimate that the total mass of the Virgo Supercluster is about 1015 solar masses (2 × 1046 kg; see Orders of magnitude (mass)). As its luminosity is far too small for this number of stars, it is thought that a large part of its mass is dark matter.
It is suspected that, as clusters gather in superclusters, so do superclusters gather in hyperclusters. Those hyperclusters themselves would be the biggest structures in the universe.
A gravitational anomaly known as the Great Attractor lies somewhere within the local supercluster.