At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists considered our galaxy to be unique. Today, astronomers suggest that the visible part of the universe alone contains more than 125 billion (stop and think about this number) galaxies. How many stars are there in each? Trillions. Their mass defies real comprehension - even theoretical physicists hide behind equations. Imagine now that somewhere out there, so far away that we don't even see it, there is an incredibly huge something. And this something gradually attracts our part of the Universe. Scientists call this "something" the Great Attractor. And among themselves they call it the most terrible thing in space!
Search for motion
From the introduction, you roughly understood how majestic and immense the universe is. You can go to the details: in the vicinity of the solar system, theoretical physicists have counted about 130 superclusters of galaxies. This is all within a radius of 1.5 billion light years. It's all moving. But where?
Where are we flying
The Milky Way in the company of galaxies in the constellation Virgo and the supercluster of galaxies in the constellation Coma of Veronica, and even an immense amount of yet unexplained cosmic matter, flies at a terrible speed of 600 kilometers per second. We are attracted by an incredible, unimaginable source of gravity. What will happen when we all finally get there? It's not clear yet.
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Scary calculations
Once physicists realized that everything was moving, they began to calculate the mass of the final source of gravity. According to the very first estimates, the total mass of this object exceeds that of several tens of thousands of large galaxies.
Funnel of fate
And now the entire part of the Universe visible to us is gradually drawn into this very funnel. Scientists cannot yet imagine how much matter this cosmic anomaly has already collected in itself. In 1986, physicist Alan Dressler, amazed by his calculations, called it the Great Attractor.
What is it
Modern technology development simply does not allow scientists to "see" what exactly is in such a distance. The nature of the object is controversial and constantly debated. A few years ago, a group of MIT physicists suggested that the Great Attractor is a relict curvature of space-time that formed at the dawn of the universe. We ask you to stop again and think about all of the above. Just try to imagine a time when there was no universe itself!
Grand magnet
After years of study, scientists can only say one thing: The Great Attractor is the largest supercluster of galaxies in the universe. But even this incredible mass of galaxies is not enough to explain the attraction! Physicists suggest that beyond the part of the cosmos visible to us, there is still some kind of grandiose structure that is part of the Great Attractor. Maybe there is an incredible amount of dark matter hiding there, unknown to us.
Unknown factor
Tumana is also added by the fact that recently scientists were able to simulate the process of the formation of the Universe on supercomputers. The equations included all forces known to science, but as a result, the model did not show any attractor. In other words, this structure simply cannot exist in nature. Anyway, what makes galaxies "flock"? Perhaps galaxies are more than just clusters of matter. They may even be intelligent. Maybe.
Multiverse
Scientists are leaning more and more towards the multiverse theory. Our universe is just one of these universes that do not touch each other in any way. This theory could indirectly explain the existence of the Great Attractor: what if our Universe "gave a leak" and now all of us are simply sucked into the neighboring Universe by a kind of pressure drop? Of course, all this sounds very strange - but the very existence of the Great Attractor simply defies comprehension.