A Stunning New Map Reveals For The First Time Where Our Galaxy Fits Into The Universe

A Stunning New Map Reveals For The First Time Where Our Galaxy Fits Into The Universe Even our galaxy is a mere speck in a larger structure, which was just revealed for the first time by a group of scientists who created a map of more than 8,000 galaxies in an effort to understand where they fit in the universe. The team placed the Milky Way on the outskirts of a massive, previously unknown galaxy supercluster scientists have named Laniakea, from the Hawaiian words for "immeasurable heaven." The technique enables astronomers for the first time to clearly delineate where one supercluster of galaxies ends and another begins. The new maps show that the Milky Way galaxy, along with the Virgo cluster and some 100,000 other galaxies, is gravitationally sailing in the same gigantic cosmic pool, named Laniakea. Most galaxies are pulled toward the heart of a supercluster, a dense center called the great attractor. In Laniakea, even though our galaxy is far, far away on the edge of the system, we're still being pulled by the great attractor's gravity. The supercluster spans some 520 million light-years in diameter. One light-year is the distance that light, which moves at about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/s), travels in one year, or roughly 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion km). Not much new but truly amazing how big the cluster is from previous thought! I am always amazed how it seems the rate we are making discoveries of our universe(s) is picking up steam each couple of years. Imagine the mapping of the universe that will be available in just a few years. "We haven't seen the edges of our neighbors, and we haven't seen far enough to understand what's causing this full motion of our galaxy," Tully said in an interview. Yes, this is truly the interesting part. What exactly is this "great attractor" that is pulling everything in. We do know super massive blackholes exist at the center of galaxies, even our own, which produces the swirl and inward pull. However, one to pull in hundreds or thousands of galaxies themselves is not super massive, it's super massive to the xth degree! So it makes me wonder, would it be a blackhole at all? I wonder if these are the "bruises" that multi-verse theorists are looking for or even possible the adjoining of one dimension with that of another? Of course, it could be one overly massive black hole or some dark energy we are yet to discover. Yet, it makes you wonder! Thanks goes to AllSourceIntel from AboveTopSecret.com