Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2019 August 6

                    The Local Void in the Nearby Universe
               Image Credit: R. Brent Tully (U. Hawaii) et al.

   Explanation: What does our region of the Universe look like? Since
   galaxies are so spread out over the sky, and since our Milky Way Galaxy
   blocks part of the distant sky, it has been hard to tell. A new map has
   been made, however, using large-scale galaxy motions to infer what
   massive objects must be gravitating in the nearby universe. The
   featured map, spanning over 600 million light years on a side, shows
   that our Milky Way Galaxy is on the edge of the Virgo Cluster of
   Galaxies, which is connected to the Great Attractor -- an even larger
   grouping of galaxies. Also nearby are the massive Coma Cluster and the
   extensive Perseus-Pisces Supercluster. Conversely, we are also on the
   edge of huge region nearly empty of galaxies known as the Local Void.
   The repulsive push by the Local Void combined with the gravitational
   pull toward the elevated galaxy density on the other side of the sky
   explains part of the mysteriously high speed our Galaxy has relative to
   the cosmic microwave background -- but not all. To explore the local
   universe yourself, as determined by Cosmicflows-3, you are invited to
   zoom in and spin around this interactive 3D visualization.

                     Tomorrow's picture: jupiter's jaws
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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