A mysterious force acts on the Milky Way in intergalactic space

(ORDO NEWS) — In the space beyond our Galaxy, there is a mysterious force that exerts significant pressure on the Milky Way.

We do not exactly know the nature of this force and the era of its occurrence, however, scientists have given the name to this force – a dipole repulsor.

To explain the essence of the concept of a dipole repulsor, it is necessary to understand the forces acting on the largest structures of the Universe – galaxies, clusters and superclusters of galaxies.

Our Milky Way galaxy, together with two large neighboring galaxies, is part of the so-called Local Group, which also includes several dozen dwarf galaxies.

The nearest large-scale structure of the Universe to us is the Virgo cluster, which unites more than one thousand galaxies and is located at a distance of about 60 million light years.

The Local Group is not part of the Virgo Cluster, but it is part of a larger scale structure called the Virgo Supercluster.

The Virgo Supercluster is one of the branches of an even larger-scale structure, the Laniakea Supercluster. The Laniakea supercluster is surrounded by other superclusters, such as the Shepley, Hercules, and Indian Peacock superclusters, and is also associated with them. Each of these superclusters spans hundreds of millions of light-years.

It is worth mentioning here the difference in definitions between a cluster and a supercluster of galaxies. If a cluster of galaxies is a gravitationally bound structure, then a supercluster is simply a large group of galaxies that is larger than a typical galaxy cluster, but smaller than the entire universe.

Numerous surveys of the sky in the infrared and radio ranges carried out by astronomers have made it possible to establish the location of the gravitational attractor closest to us, the Shapley supercluster, in the direction of which all the galaxies of the Local Group, including the Milky Way, are moving.

However, calculations have shown that the mass of material from the Shapley supercluster is insufficient to explain the recorded speed of the Milky Way.

Then scientists suggested that on the opposite side of our Galaxy is the source of gravitational repulsion, a region of space with a low density of matter, called the dipole repulsor.

While a supercluster of galaxies, which has a high density of matter, is an area of ​​gravitational attraction, a gravitational repulsor is an area with a low density of matter – the so-called void, or log in.

Such a gravitational repulsor for the galaxies of the Local Group is precisely the dipole repulsor, to which this article is devoted.

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