Astronomers have discovered that our galaxy, the Milky Way, may be just one part of an even larger local structure than we thought. If this study is confirmed by further observations and research, it may provide evidence that the model for the evolution of the universe is not yet fully established.
As we study the universe further, we discover that we are part of a much larger structure formed by gravitational interactions. We orbit around the sun, and the sun is part of the Milky Way galaxy, which includes the famous Andromeda galaxy and several smaller galaxies that “may collide with us”. It’s part of a group.
But that’s not all. The Local Group lies on the outer edge of the Virgo Supercluster, itself part of a huge basin known as Laniakea. Laniakea also exists within a larger “Basin of Attraction” (BoA) that may be 10 times its volume, according to new research.
“Just as Earth’s landscape is divided into watersheds, the entire universe can be thought of as a patchwork of adjacent BoAs,” the researchers explain in their paper. “The BoA is generally not bound by gravity, because the relative motion of distant points within the BoA is typically governed by the expansion of the universe.”
Gravity basins are massive structures, so gravity is not the dominant force, but there is still evidence of common flow. The researchers studied the movements of 56,000 galaxies and attempted to create a “probabilistic map” of the local universe, taking into account the errors that occur when trying to measure the speed and motion of galaxies. In doing so, they hoped to narrow the possibility that these gravitational basins exist.
“Our universe is like a vast web, with galaxies lying along filaments and clustered together at gravitational nodes,” R. Brent Talley, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a statement. ” he explained. “Just as water flows within basins, galaxies flow within basins of cosmic gravity. The discovery of these larger basins could fundamentally change our understanding of the structure of the universe.”
When we ran simulations on the data, we found that the BoA contains many large structures, including the mysterious Great Attractor.
“Nearby, evidence has emerged for a BoA centered near the highly obscured Ophiuchi cluster behind the Milky Way’s center,” the research team explained. “This BoA may include the so-called Great Attractor Area and the entity Laniakea, which includes us. […] Sloan is dominated by the Great Wall of China and its associated structures. ”
Creating such cosmic maps is a tedious task that tracks the movements of galaxies and their influence on each other to model the “flows” and flow of the universe. So there is a lot of uncertainty. According to the researchers’ simulations, there is a 60% chance that our Milky Way galaxy is not actually in Laniakea, but in the Shapley concentration.
Not only is this research exciting because it pinpoints our home address, but it could have far greater implications for models of the universe if further observations and analysis continue to uncover the same structures. there is. Simply put, structures of enormous size challenge our understanding of the universe.
Given what we see in the cosmic microwave background radiation, the first detectable light after the universe’s inflation, the structure can only grow larger within current models. However, this and other similar findings appear to be larger than current models predict. For now, the team plans to continue mapping the largest structure in the universe.
“The deeper we look into the universe, the more we discover that our home superclusters are more connected and more widespread than we thought,” said Noam Libeskind, an astronomer at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam. It is perhaps not surprising to see this,” he said in a separate statement. “It would be very interesting to discover that we are likely part of an even larger structure. For now, it’s just a hint. More observations need to be made to confirm.”
The study is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
