"With 100 groups and clusters of galaxies—our Local Group among them—this supercluster holds 10 quintillion solar masses of matter. But some of its galactic packs are not moving toward the center. Those strays muddy the boundaries and definition of “supercluster.”"
Our Local Group is a speck in this galactic metropolis. We’re in the supercluster suburbs—an offshoot of a powerful, centrally located cluster, also named Virgo. Our neighbor, the tiny Maffei 1 group, was kicked out of our pack after tangling with Andromeda.
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Leo Ring
The Leo Group is ringed by a colossal band of frigid gas. An ongoing quest is to find gas that’s primordial—never part of a star. But evidence proves this cloud blew off from two colliding galaxies a billion years ago. The search for virgin gas continues.
Local Group
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Requires
Turbulence
At the center of the Virgo Supercluster, swarms of active black holes, with their powerful polar jets, shake up the gas clouds. This turbulence keeps would-be stellar nurseries hot and unstable for billions of years, preventing stars from forming.
Virgo Supercluster Rank 3
Gravitational Lenses
Galaxy clusters are powerful magnifiers—massive enough to bend the light from distant objects, making them appear larger. Since their light takes billions of years to reach us, they show us snapshots of the early universe. We are literally seeing the past.