Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Astronomy, Stellar, Planetary News .




SKY NIGHTLY
Hawaii scientist maps, names Laniakea, our home supercluster of galaxies
by Staff Writers
Manoa HI (SPX) Sep 05, 2014


This image shows a slice of the Laniakea Supercluster in the supergalactic equatorial plane -- an imaginary plane containing many of the most massive clusters in this structure. The colors represent density within this slice, with red for high densities and blue for voids -- areas with relatively little matter. Individual galaxies are shown as white dots. Velocity flow streams within the region gravitationally dominated by Laniakea are shown in white, while dark blue flow lines are away from the Laniakea local basin of attraction. The orange contour encloses the outer limits of these streams, a diameter of about 160 Mpc. This region contains the mass of about 1017 suns: 100 million billion suns. Image courtesy SDvision interactive visualization software by DP at CEA/Saclay, France. For a larger version of this image please go here.

University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomer R. Brent Tully, who recently shared the 2014 Gruber Cosmology Prize and the 2014 Victor Ambartsumian International Prize, has led an international team of astronomers in defining the contours of the immense supercluster of galaxies containing our own Milky Way.

They have named the supercluster "Laniakea," meaning "immense heaven" in Hawaiian. The paper explaining this work is the cover story of the prestigious journal Nature.

Galaxies are not distributed randomly throughout the universe. Instead, they are found in groups, like our own Local Group, that contain dozens of galaxies, and in massive clusters containing hundreds of galaxies, all interconnected in a web of filaments in which galaxies are strung like pearls.

Where these filaments intersect, we find huge structures, called "superclusters." These structures are interconnected, but they have poorly defined boundaries.

The researchers are proposing a new way to evaluate these large-scale structures by examining their impact on the motions of galaxies. A galaxy between two such structures will be caught in a gravitational tug-of-war in which the balance of the gravitational forces from the surrounding large-scale structures determines the galaxy's motion.

By mapping the velocities of galaxies throughout our local universe, the team was able to define the region of space where each supercluster dominates.

The Milky Way resides in the outskirts of one such supercluster, whose extent has for the first time been carefully mapped using these new techniques. This Laniakea Supercluster is 500 million light-years in diameter and contains the mass of 1017 (a hundred quadrillion) sun in 100,000 galaxies.

This study clarifies the role of the Great Attractor, a problem that has kept astronomers busy for 30 years. Within the volume of the Laniakea Supercluster, motions are directed inwards, as water streams follow descending paths toward a valley. The Great Attractor region is a large flat bottom gravitational valley with a sphere of attraction that extends across the Laniakea Supercluster.

The name Laniakea was suggested by Nawa'a Napoleon, an associate professor of Hawaiian Language and chair of the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at Kapiolani Community College, a part of the University of Hawaii system.

The name honors Polynesian navigators who used knowledge of the heavens to voyage across the immensity of the Pacific Ocean.

.


Related Links
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Astronomy News from Skynightly.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








SKY NIGHTLY
Witnessing the early growth of a giant
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 29, 2014
Astronomers have uncovered for the first time the earliest stages of a massive galaxy forming in the young Universe. The discovery was made possible through combining observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The growing galaxy core is blazing with the light of millions o ... read more


SKY NIGHTLY
New Horizons Crosses Neptune Orbit On Route To First Pluto Flyby

From Pinpoint of Light to a Geologic World

New Horizons Spies Charon Orbiting Pluto

ALMA telescope sizes up Pluto's orbit

SKY NIGHTLY
DNA May Have Had Humble Beginnings As Nutrient Carrier

Hot-spring bacteria reveal ability to use far-red light for photosynthesis

How Titan's Haze Help Us Understand Life's Origins

Scientists confirm array of microorganisms in buried Antarctic lake

SKY NIGHTLY
How NASA's New Carbon Observatory Will Help Us Understand Alien Worlds

Orion Rocks! Pebble-Size Particles May Jump-Start Planet Formation

Rotation of Planets Influences Habitability

Planet-like object may have spent its youth as hot as a star

SKY NIGHTLY
MAVEN Spacecraft Makes Final Preparations For Mars

Robots do battle over Mars exploration

Opportunity Flash-Memory Reformat Planned

Memory Reformat Planned for Opportunity Mars Rover

SKY NIGHTLY
Year's final supermoon is a Harvest Moon

China Aims for the Moon, Plans to Bring Back Lunar Soil

Electric Sparks May Alter Evolution of Lunar Soil

China to test recoverable moon orbiter

SKY NIGHTLY
Researcher advances a new model for dark matter

Cosmic forecast: Dark clouds will give way to sunshine

Say hello to Laniakea, our cosmic neighbourhood

Why sibling stars look alike: Early, fast mixing in star-birth clouds

SKY NIGHTLY
Four Decades of Sea Ice From Space: The Beginning

NASA's RapidScat: Some Assembly Required - in Space

NASA Awards Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite Modification for JPS-2 Mission

Bardarbunga Belches

SKY NIGHTLY
Rosetta Comet is Darker than Charcoal

Comet to pass Earth close enough for binoculars

Small Asteroid to Safely Pass Close to Earth Sunday

Surface level ultraviolet spectra of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko obtained




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.