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Light-years

  • Astronomers have discovered a vast, extragalactic void they call the Dipole Repeller, that appears to be pushing our Local Group of galaxies away from it
    Science
    Enormous extragalactic void is pushing on the Milky Way
    ​The Milky Way galaxy is currently racing through space at about 2 million km/h on a journey towards the Shapley Supercluster. But we’re not just being pulled in this direction: Astronomers have now discovered a huge extragalactic void, called the Dipole Repeller, that’s pushing us away.
  • The Laniakea Supercluster, to which our Milky Way belongs, shown in the supergalactic equatorial plane (Image: CEA/Saclay, France)
    Space
    Galactic supercluster identified as home to our Milky Way
    A new study has revealed that the Milky Way is a member of a group of local galaxies interconnected within a larger supercluster made up of a myriad other galaxies, all interlinked within a tenuous web of filaments many thousands of light years long.