Wiktionary
n. (context astronomy English) An extended group of clusters of galaxy
Wikipedia
Superclusters are large groups of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups and are among the largest known structures of the cosmos. The Milky Way is in the Local Group galaxy cluster (that contains more than 54 galaxies), which in turn is in the Laniakea Supercluster. This supercluster spans over 500 million light years, while the Local Group spans over 10 million light years. The number of superclusters in the observable universe is estimated to be 10 million.
Galaxies are grouped into clusters instead of being dispersed randomly. Clusters of galaxies are grouped together to form superclusters. Typically, superclusters contain dozens of individual clusters throughout an area of space about 150 million light-years across. Unlike clusters, superclusters are not bound together by gravity. They are all shifting away from each other due to the Hubble flow.
The Milky Way galaxy falls within the Local Group, which is a poor and irregular cluster of galaxies. Poor clusters may contain only a few dozen galaxies, as compared to rich clusters with hundreds or even thousands. The Local Group is near the Local Supercluster (also known as the Virgo Supercluster), which has a diameter of 100 million light-years. The Local Supercluster contains a total of about 10 times the mass of the Sun.
The biggest cluster in the observable universe is called the Great Attractor. Its gravity is so strong that the Local Supercluster, including the Milky Way, is moving in a direction towards it at a rate of several hundred kilometers per second. The biggest supercluster outside of the local universe is the Perseus-Pegasus Filament. It contains the Perseus supercluster and it spans about a billion light-years, making it one of the largest known structures in the universe.
Most usage of supercluster in population genetics research articles applies to proposed large groups of human mtDNA haplotype lineages, found by cluster analysis, that are thought to stem from a single distant most recent common ancestor, on a time scale of tens of thousands of years.
Supercluster is a recording project that formed during 2007 in Athens, Georgia. It includes musicians from the Athens, Georgia bands New Sound Of Numbers, Bob Hay & the Jolly Beggars, Casper & the Cookies, Of Montreal, Circulatory System and Pylon, along with Elephant 6 recording artist John Fernandes. Members presently include Hannah M. Jones, Bob Hay, Bill David, Kay Stanton, Bryan Poole, Vanessa Briscoe Hay, Jason NeSmith and John Fernandes. Alumni include Randy Bewley (deceased), Heather McIntosh, Will Cullen Hart and Peter Erchick. Supercluster play what they term "Appalachian Wave." For a brief period they were known as FFFM.
On February 23, 2009, Randy Bewley was driving on Barber Street in Athens when he suffered a heart attack. According to the band Pylon's statement, his van drifted off the road and overturned. He was admitted to Athens Regional Medical Center and lapsed into a coma; he died two days later on February 25 when he was removed from life support.
Bradford Cox from the group Deerhunter came into Bel*Air studio and helped Supercluster finish the last couple of tracks that needed to be recorded for Waves which was released October 6, 2009 on Cloud Recordings Live performance guitar duties are now handled by Jason NeSmith and Bryan Poole. Supercluster have continued to record singles since this release and perform locally in Athens, Georgia. They plan on releasing a full length project at some point composed of these singles.
Supercluster is the astronomical assemblage.
Supercluster may also refer to:
- Supercluster (band)
- Supercluster (genetic)
Usage examples of "supercluster".
Virgo cluster of galaxies consists of well over a thousand galaxies, and we believe it to be the center of a supercluster of which our local group and the human local group are outriders.
The supercluster holes are the largest to have formed in nature, with masses of maybe a hundred trillion suns.
The Virgo Supercluster itself, viewed in terms of the configuration of its dominant originating galaxies and the clusters of groups they have spawned, turns out to be a virtual twin of the Fornax Supercluster, seen from the Southern Hemisphere.
Local Supercluster becomes a far more crowded place than is commonly supposed, with all of the quasars and other objects that we feel we know much about existing within it, and not very much at all beyond.
Or whether the superclusters were so massive that they skewed expansion and created an imbalance.
Thus it overflows and spills out at points where galactic superclusters then form.
He saw clusters and superclusters of galaxies, glowing softly, sprinkled over space in great filaments and sheets, so that it was as if the Universe were built of spider-web.
There were a dozen small satellite galaxies around the Home Galaxy, thousands of galaxies in the local group, and twenty thousand similar superclusters of galaxies.
At last all the energy sources available for exploitation, from the gravitational potential of galactic superclusters down to the zero-point energy inherent in space itself, would be suborned to the great project of consciousness.
Star systems, galaxies, clusters and superclusters, all stabilized by orbital motion, were impossible here.
The roughly spherical, ten-million-or-so-light-year-diameter clusters of galaxies themselves turned out to be concentrated in ribbonlike agglomerations termed superclusters, snaking through space for perhaps several hundred million light-years, separated by comparatively empty voids.
Or imagined galaxies gathered into dusters and superclusters, bigger and bigger, until size lost any meaning and she felt herself falling.
Within ten million light-years off the supergalactic plane of the local supercluster were many groups of galaxies.
Consider an electron in some remote part of the universe (in the Local Supercluster if that's all there is to it), that's still relatively new and therefore of low mass.