Key facts
- Category
- Galaxy superclusters
- Object class
- Galaxy supercluster
- Scale fact
- 147 million lydiameter
- Composition
- At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters, galaxies, hot intergalactic gas, dark matter
Virgo Supercluster
147 million lydiameter
Details
The Virgo Supercluster is the larger galactic neighborhood that contains the Virgo Cluster, the Local Group, and many other nearby galaxy groups and clusters. It was long used as the standard name for our home supercluster-scale environment before larger flow-based structures such as Laniakea became common in cosmography.
The Virgo Supercluster is a conventional description of the flattened concentration of galaxy groups and clusters around the Virgo Cluster, including the Local Group. Its 147-million-light-year diameter is an approximate mapped span, not the edge of a gravitationally bound object.
Flow-based mapping later placed much of the same region inside the larger Laniakea Supercluster. Both names remain useful, but they apply different definitions to overlapping large-scale structure.
Links
- Universe journey
- Local Supercluster
- Wikipedia
- Virgo Supercluster on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Virgo Supercluster on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Virgo Supercluster falls between Coma Cluster and Laniakea Supercluster. The band uses nearby Galaxy supercluster records.
Shared physical scale
382million ly
Sources
References for Virgo Supercluster
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Virgo Supercluster — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Based on work by Andrew Z. Colvin, CC BY-SA 3.0)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.