Astronomers discover universe's biggest Galaxy Supercluster near Milky Way

A team of international astronomers has discovered Vela super cluster, one of the biggest super galaxy clusters near the Milky Way.
It was spotted by a research team of astronomers from South Africa, Australia and Europe with help slew of telescopes including the Anglo-Australian Telescope (Sydney) and South African Large Telescope (Cape Town).

Key Facts

• Vela super cluster is massive and it is estimated to carry 100,000 galaxies with trillions of stars. It is one of the biggest concentrations of galaxies found in the Universe.
• It is possibly biggest galaxy in neighborhood of our Milky Galaxy and is at a distance of 840 million light-years from Earth. Our galaxy Milky Way, part of Laniakea supercluster is puny when compared to Vela.
• This new discovery may help astronomers to answer the retardation on the speed of Milky Way, which has mass of 400 billion suns and is containing 100 billion or more stars.
• Vela can also offer hints on how Milky Way got to the current location in the universe and gravity of the supercluster can explain the variations in Milky Way’s measured motion in space.

What are Galaxy clusters?

They are among the largest structures in the universe consisting of hundreds of galaxies spread in a not so vast area, usually it is limited to a few million light-years across. These clusters are big population of elliptical yet massive galaxies at the core. It is believed that these clusters formed stars a long time ago but not making stars anymore.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2016