Northern Local Supervoid
Encyclopedia
The Northern Local Supervoid is a region of space devoid of rich clusters of galaxies
, known as a void
. It is located between the Local, Coma
and Hercules supercluster
s. It contains a few small galaxy systems and galaxy clusters but is mostly empty. The faint galaxies within this void divide the region into smaller voids, which are 3–10 times smaller than the supervoid. The galaxies in this supervoid are primarily spirals
.
The void's center is located 61 megaparsecs away and it is 104 megaparsecs in diameter across its narrowest width.
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
, known as a void
Void (astronomy)
In astronomy, voids are the empty spaces between filaments, the largest-scale structures in the Universe, that contain very few, or no, galaxies. They were first discovered in 1978 during a pioneering study by Stephen Gregory and Laird A. Thompson at the Kitt Peak National Observatory...
. It is located between the Local, Coma
Coma Supercluster
The Coma Supercluster is a nearby supercluster of galaxies comprising the Coma Cluster and the Leo Cluster . Located 300 million light-years from Earth, it is in the center of the Great Wall. The Coma Supercluster is the nearest massive cluster of galaxies to our own Virgo Supercluster...
and Hercules supercluster
Supercluster
Superclusters are large groups of smaller galaxy groups and clusters and are among the largest known structures of the cosmos. They are so large that they are not gravitationally bound and, consequently, partake in the Hubble expansion.-Existence:...
s. It contains a few small galaxy systems and galaxy clusters but is mostly empty. The faint galaxies within this void divide the region into smaller voids, which are 3–10 times smaller than the supervoid. The galaxies in this supervoid are primarily spirals
Spiral galaxy
A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...
.
The void's center is located 61 megaparsecs away and it is 104 megaparsecs in diameter across its narrowest width.