Our galaxy is being pulled toward something gigantic that we cannot see, say astronomers – after discovering that 400 galaxies, including our own, are being pulled in the same direction.
Scientists studying the space and the millions of galaxies within it have made a startling and rather unsettling discovery. A mysterious and absolutely massive gravitational anomaly is pulling us and our galactic neighbours toward itself at the rate of 600 km/s or 1.3 million miles per hour – and scientists call the force THE GREAT ATTRACTOR.
Astronomers mapping the observable universe — looking at 400 elliptical galaxies — noticed that they (the galaxies) are moving towards something we cannot see, as it is in the “Zone of Avoidance”, or the area of sky obscured by our own galaxy’s galactic plane and the cosmic dust within it, reports IFL Science.
Whatever it was, to move a large number of galaxies requires a lot of mass. We can’t see it, but we are being dragged towards something gigantic.
How is the distance between galaxies measured?
In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble – also called a “pioneer of the distant stars,” – noticed that distant galaxies looked redder than those nearby. Moreover, the further away they are, the redder they tend to look. This observation, known as redshift, allowed us to measure the distances to galaxies too distant to determine by other means.
Hubble brought the discovery that how ‘redshifted’ a galaxy is, is directly proportional to its distance, giving us a way to measure distant galaxies, leading to the discovery that the majority are moving away from us (and giving support to the idea of an expanding universe). Moreover, the further away they are, the redder they tend to look. This observation revealed that in the expanding universe all its components flying apart from each other unless they are close enough that gravity holds them together.