A STRANGE intergalactic force is drawing our Milky Way galaxy inward. We don’t know what, or why. But a hidden swarm of hundreds of nearby galaxies just discovered by Australian astronomers may help reveal the identity of the ‘Great Attractor’.

This pack of galaxies has been spotted by astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory in NSW. The international study involved researchers from Australia, South Africa, the US and the Netherlands, and was published today in Astronomical Journal.

Despite being ‘just next door’ in astronomical terms — a mere 250 million light years away — these galaxies have remained hidden from view because they are on the opposite side of our own.

The intensity of stars and dust crowded together along the plane of the Milky Way is directly in the line of sight — masking everything behind it from view.

That something must be there has been known for some time.

Its immense gravitational pull — the equivalent of a million billion Suns — has been observed through calculations of strange deviations in the flight path of nearby galaxies.

And our own.

Full report:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/hidden-cluster-of-galaxies-reveals-the-dark-force-drawing-in-the-milky-way/news-story/bfee4995edf310dce4c16686de6da089

Bubblecar said:

A STRANGE intergalactic force is drawing our Milky Way galaxy inward. We don’t know what, or why. But a hidden swarm of hundreds of nearby galaxies just discovered by Australian astronomers may help reveal the identity of the ‘Great Attractor’.

This pack of galaxies has been spotted by astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory in NSW. The international study involved researchers from Australia, South Africa, the US and the Netherlands, and was published today in Astronomical Journal.

Despite being ‘just next door’ in astronomical terms — a mere 250 million light years away — these galaxies have remained hidden from view because they are on the opposite side of our own.

The intensity of stars and dust crowded together along the plane of the Milky Way is directly in the line of sight — masking everything behind it from view.

That something must be there has been known for some time.

Its immense gravitational pull — the equivalent of a million billion Suns — has been observed through calculations of strange deviations in the flight path of nearby galaxies.

And our own.

Full report:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/hidden-cluster-of-galaxies-reveals-the-dark-force-drawing-in-the-milky-way/news-story/bfee4995edf310dce4c16686de6da089

We are all doomed.

Its the Xeelee

PermeateFree said:

We are all doomed.

The Great Attractor is not only greatly attractive but perhaps even near infinitely selective. By the time we get there it will have passed us by……..

A not surprising finding, more galaxies will be discovered that are hiding behind dust clouds etc

CrazyNeutrino said:

A not surprising finding, more galaxies will be discovered that are hiding behind dust clouds etc

We’ll fine them for loitering……

CrazyNeutrino said:

A not surprising finding, more galaxies will be discovered that are hiding behind dust clouds etc

As if there were not enough already.

I wonder if one day we will have nearly complete picture of our observable universe

Cymek said:

I wonder if one day we will have nearly complete picture of our observable universe

We as in you and me? Proble’snot……

• I wonder if one day we will have nearly complete picture of our observable universe

Close your eyes and you will have a complete picture of your observable universe…

Cymek said:

I wonder if one day we will have nearly complete picture of our observable universe

Of course. Observable universe is the key.

furious said:

• I wonder if one day we will have nearly complete picture of our observable universe

Close your eyes and you will have a complete picture of your observable universe…

close your eyes you’ll see my finger up your bum……

:P

.. darts off………….

from this article on the same topic

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/weve-found-evidence-the-milky-way-is-one-of-hundreds-of-galaxies-being-sucked-in-by-the-great-attractor-2016-2

In particular, the discovery of three galaxy concentrations (named NW1, NW2 and NW3) and two new clusters (CW1 and CW2) will help astronomers understand what the Great Attractor actually is and why it’s pulling us toward it at an estimated two million kilometres per hour.

How is the great attractor interacting with the expanding universe?

CrazyNeutrino said:

from this article on the same topic

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/weve-found-evidence-the-milky-way-is-one-of-hundreds-of-galaxies-being-sucked-in-by-the-great-attractor-2016-2

In particular, the discovery of three galaxy concentrations (named NW1, NW2 and NW3) and two new clusters (CW1 and CW2) will help astronomers understand what the Great Attractor actually is and why it’s pulling us toward it at an estimated two million kilometres per hour.

How is the great attractor interacting with the expanding universe?

probably dark energy…

Postpocelipse said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

from this article on the same topic

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/weve-found-evidence-the-milky-way-is-one-of-hundreds-of-galaxies-being-sucked-in-by-the-great-attractor-2016-2

In particular, the discovery of three galaxy concentrations (named NW1, NW2 and NW3) and two new clusters (CW1 and CW2) will help astronomers understand what the Great Attractor actually is and why it’s pulling us toward it at an estimated two million kilometres per hour.

How is the great attractor interacting with the expanding universe?

probably dark energy…

Might be the Kingdom of God.

• close your eyes you’ll see my finger up your bum…

So, you’re a sexual deviant?

How is the great attractor interacting with the expanding universe?

locally gravitationally bound systems don’t expand at the same rate, if at all, as unbound systems.

Boris said:

How is the great attractor interacting with the expanding universe?

locally gravitationally bound systems don’t expand at the same rate, if at all, as unbound systems.

yes, but the great attractor appears to be a bit different.

in what way?

Boris said:

in what way?

this bit

“We don’t actually understand what’s causing this gravitational acceleration on the Milky Way or where it’s coming from,” says study lead author Professor Lister Staveley-Smith of the University of Western Australia.

yes, they don’t understand what has caused the Great Attractor to form. it is still a gravitationally bound system though and thus goes counter to the universal expansion.

furious said:

• close your eyes you’ll see my finger up your bum…

So, you’re a sexual deviant?

Only in your imagination.

oh yes, i’m the great attractor….

• Only in your imagination.

Rightio…

furious said:

• Only in your imagination.

Rightio…

i try to leave an impression…..

Postpocelipse said:

furious said:

• Only in your imagination.

Rightio…

i try to leave an impression…..

Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton’s second and third laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction on that system.

> Despite being ‘just next door’ in astronomical terms — a mere 250 million light years away — these galaxies have remained hidden from view because they are on the opposite side of our own.

Aha, that explains it, but … I didn’t think it’s true. I remember once (I think it was in 1983 or 1984) calculating the angle between the direction to the great attractor and the direction in which the Sun is moving in its path around the galactic centre. From memory, the two are either very closely aligned or very close to oppositely aligned, so I could calculate the speed of the Sun’s motion through the universe by simply summing the two. But that would put it at almost exactly 90 degrees to the opposite side of the Milky Way. Hidden by the Milky Way I can accept, but not on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

Not unless someone can redo the calculation.

>Hidden by the Milky Way I can accept, but not on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

My reading of the article is that the 883 galaxies are not the Great Attractor – they’re just more stuff being attracted to it, whatever it is.

Bubblecar said:

>Hidden by the Milky Way I can accept, but not on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

My reading of the article is that the 883 galaxies are not the Great Attractor – they’re just more stuff being attracted to it, whatever it is.

That is correct. Like Ayesha, The Great Attractor is mysterious………

Postpocelipse said:

Bubblecar said:

>Hidden by the Milky Way I can accept, but not on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

My reading of the article is that the 883 galaxies are not the Great Attractor – they’re just more stuff being attracted to it, whatever it is.

That is correct. Like Ayesha, The Great Attractor is mysterious………

maybe its a huge black hole?

wookiemeister said:

Postpocelipse said:

Bubblecar said:

>Hidden by the Milky Way I can accept, but not on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

My reading of the article is that the 883 galaxies are not the Great Attractor – they’re just more stuff being attracted to it, whatever it is.

That is correct. Like Ayesha, The Great Attractor is mysterious………

maybe its a huge black hole?

No peeking. You’ll ruin the twist……..

Bubblecar said:

A STRANGE intergalactic force is drawing our Milky Way galaxy inward. We don’t know what, or why. But a hidden swarm of hundreds of nearby galaxies just discovered by Australian astronomers may help reveal the identity of the ‘Great Attractor’.

This pack of galaxies has been spotted by astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory in NSW. The international study involved researchers from Australia, South Africa, the US and the Netherlands, and was published today in Astronomical Journal.

Despite being ‘just next door’ in astronomical terms — a mere 250 million light years away — these galaxies have remained hidden from view because they are on the opposite side of our own.

The intensity of stars and dust crowded together along the plane of the Milky Way is directly in the line of sight — masking everything behind it from view.

That something must be there has been known for some time.

Its immense gravitational pull — the equivalent of a million billion Suns — has been observed through calculations of strange deviations in the flight path of nearby galaxies.

And our own.

Full report:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/hidden-cluster-of-galaxies-reveals-the-dark-force-drawing-in-the-milky-way/news-story/bfee4995edf310dce4c16686de6da089

Technical article on arxiv from year 2000 about techniques in all wavelength bands for seeing galaxies in the great attractor.

http://arxiv.org/ps/astro-ph/0006199v1

Abstract from most recent paper.
THE PARKES H I ZONE OF AVOIDANCE SURVEY
L. Staveley-Smith1,2, R. C. Kraan-Korteweg3, A. C. Schröder4, P. A. Henning5, B. S. Koribalski6, I. M. Stewart7, and G. Heald8,9
Published 2016 February 9 • © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. • The Astronomical Journal, Volume 151, Number 3

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Abstract
A blind H i survey of the extragalactic sky behind the southern Milky Way has been conducted with the multibeam receiver on the 64 m Parkes radio telescope. The survey covers the Galactic longitude range $212^\circ \lt {\ell }\lt 36^\circ $ and Galactic latitudes $| b| \lt 5^\circ $ to an rms sensitivity of 6 mJy per beam per 27 km s−1 channel and yields 883 galaxies to a recessional velocity of 12,000 km s−1. The survey covers the sky within the H i Parkes All-Sky Survey (HIPASS) area to greater sensitivity, finding lower H i mass galaxies at all distances, and probing more completely the large-scale structures at and beyond the distance of the Great Attractor. Fifty-one percent of the H i detections have an optical/near-infrared (NIR) counterpart in the literature. A further 27% have new counterparts found in existing, or newly obtained, optical/NIR images. The counterpart rate drops in regions of high foreground stellar crowding and extinction, and for low H i mass objects. Only 8% of all counterparts have a previous optical redshift measurement. The H i sources are found independently of Galactic extinction, although the detection rate drops in regions of high Galactic continuum. The survey is incomplete below a flux integral of approximately 3.1 Jy km s−1 and mean flux density of approximately 21 mJy, with 75% and 81% of galaxies being above these limits, respectively. Taking into account dependence on both flux and velocity width, and constructing a scaled dependence on the flux integral limit with velocity width (w0.74), completeness limits of 2.8 Jy km s−1 and 17 mJy are determined, with 92% of sources above these limits. A notable new galaxy is HIZOA J1353−58, a possible companion to the Circinus galaxy. Merging this catalog with the similarly conducted northern extension, large-scale structures are delineated, including those within the Puppis and Great Attractor regions and the Local Void. Several newly identified structures are revealed here for the first time. Three new galaxy concentrations (NW1, NW2, and NW3) are key in confirming the diagonal crossing of the Great Attractor Wall between the Norma Cluster and the CIZA J1324.7–5736 cluster. Further contributors to the general mass overdensity in that area are two new clusters (CW1 and CW2) in the nearer Centaurus Wall, one of which forms part of the striking 180° ($100\;{h}^{-1}$Mpc) long filament that dominates the southern sky at velocities of ~3000 km s−1, and the suggestion of a further wall at the Great Attractor distance at slightly higher longitudes.