First time in India, Scientists from the Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA) and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), both in Pune and members of two other Indian universities – NIT, Jamshedpur and Newman College, Thodupuzha, have discovered a previously unknown massive supercluster of galaxies and have named it Saraswati. The supercluster is about 4 billion light years away in the direction of the constellation Pisces. It is one of the largest and the furthest supercluster to be discovered.
Supercluster Saraswati
Our very own galaxy, the Milky Way is one of over 54 galaxies in the Local Group cluster. This cluster is in turn a part of the supercluster Laniakea which spans more than 0.5 billion light years. Superclusters like the Shapley and the Sloan Great Wall have been discovered earlier. Saraswati is by far the furthest among all and 8 to 10 times farther than the Shapley. There are over 10 million superclusters in the universe. Saraswati is supposed to have originated some 10 billion years ago and has over 10,000 galaxies in 42 clusters.
We belong to Laniakea Supercluster
Superclusters
The galaxies in the universe are not homogeneously distributed. Clusters and Superclusters are the clumps of galaxies bound by gravity and with large spaces between, which stretch several hundred times the clusters’ size. What makes Saraswati more interesting is that it is also the highest density of galaxies. Such high densities of galaxies are very rare in the universe.
In the past
Now the light of the supercluster has reached us it would be possible to study the past of the supercluster. This means what the scientists have observed is actually the past. This would help us understand how the universe must have been billions of years ago.
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