Is there another river in space heading for the Great Attrac

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newtonian

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We know that our galaxy and thousands of other galaxies are on a sort of river in space heading for the Great Attractor.<br /><br />Is there another river in space heading for the Great Attractor in the opposite direction or some other direction?
 
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harmonicaman

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This is a great topical question because the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Washington, DC, had a presentation of new discoveries regarding "The Great Attactor". <br /><br />Background:<br /><br />Our Milky Way galaxy, along with our Local Group, is speeding through space at about 14<sup>8</sup> miles per hour (1.4 million miles per hour) in the general direction of the constellation Centaurus. <br /><br />This mass migration includes the Virgo Cluster, the Hydra--Centaurus Supercluster, and other groups and clusters. It is as if a great river of galaxies (including our own) is flowing with a swift current toward Centaurus. <br /><br />Calculations indicate that about 10<sup>16</sup> solar masses concentrated 65 Mpc away in the direction of Centaurus would account for this. This mass concentration has been dubbed the Great Attractor and some astronomers believe that the Great Attractor may be centered on the rich cluster known as Abell 3627.<br /><br />Detailed investigation of that region of the sky have previously found 10 times too little visible matter to account for this flow implying a dominant gravitational role for unseen or Dark Matter. <br /><br />Thus, the Great Attractor is certainly there (because we see its gravitational influence), but the major portion of the mass that must be there cannot be seen in our telescopes. <br /><br />One reason that we cannot see this mass is because it is a direction of the sky that is blocked from view by gas and dust in our own Milky Way. Our own galaxy blocks our view of about 25 percent of the rest of the cosmos.<br /><br />New findings:<br /><br />Now University of Hawaii astronomers Dale Kocevski, Harald Eberling, and R. Brent Tully, along with UH alumnus Chris Mullis, have seen through the galaxy looking at X-rays that pass through space dust the way they pass through human flesh. <br /><br />Kocevski announced their work at the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.<br /><br />What they found was
 
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newtonian

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harmonicaman - Thank you - I am trying to ask some good purely scientific questions in view of Calli's recent post on one of my threads.<br /><br />I remember some of that from another thread you posted on, as did I.<br /><br />Can you link to any of those web sources?<br /><br />Or suggest how I could find them?<br /><br />Meanwhile - has there been any evidence of other rivers in space heading towards any of these Attractors from other directions or even the opposite direction?<br /><br />If not, why not?
 
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newtonian

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harmonicaman - From:<br /><br />http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/G/Great_Attractor.html<br /><br />One argument against the existence of the Great Attractor is that no one has detected signs of infalling galaxies behind the Attractor. On the other hand, it is possible that this infall may be counteracted by the mass of the more distant Shapley Concentration whose galaxies may be tugging the Great Attractor galaxies the other way.<br /><br />OK, time for sleep for me before I start seeing stars!<br /><br />I never heard of the Shapley concentration - any details on that from recent discovery?
 
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CalliArcale

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I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was harping on you or anything. I do like your Biblical threads. It's just that with the new emphasis on purely scientific discussions, they seem less appropriate for this forum. (Phenomena could definintely use them, though, and of course everything's fair game in Free Space.) But thank you for starting all of these very interesting threads! Ask the Astronomer could use the traffic. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Is there any Great Attractr at all?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Yes. There is definitely something there. The question is what. If it's all normal matter in one object, than a great deal of it has to be stuff that we can't see from here (at least with current instrumentation). Either it's dark matter, or the light from it is blocked by dark matter.<br /><br />My guess is that a lot of previously undetected matter is going to start being detected. Infrared astronomy is growing by leaps and bounds with new instruments such as the Spitzer infrared space telescope, and a lot of dark matter may not be completely dark; it may emit infrared light as it cools, radiating heat into space. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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dragon04

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It was touched on in another reply, but shouldn't we see a bunch of blue shifted galaxies getting sucked down the Cosmic Drain from the other side of the whole?<br /><br />To my knowldege, almost everything is red shifted with respect to us. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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There is a general trend towards redshifting, but some things actually are blueshifted. Andromeda, for instance. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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dragon04

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I know there are some galaxies blueshifted, including Andromeda and the Local Group, IIRC.<br /><br />I don't know how much of the panoramic deep sky Hubble has actually observed. I was just making the point that if there is indeed a Great Attractor in the sense of a single locus, that we should observe more blueshifted distant galaxies than redshifted ones, I'd think. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>
 
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nexium

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Looking in the direction of the great attractor, most of the closer galaxies should be red shifted, but those a bit farther away than the great attractor should be blue shifted. Those galaxies more than a billion light years away (too faint to be seen with most hobby telescopes) are too far past the Great Attractor to be attracted significantly, so they are red shifted by the expansion of the Universe. Neil
 
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newtonian

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Dragon04 - And therein lies my question - I would think there should be other galaxies on the other side of the Great Attractor heading towards it from the opposite direction - and therefore blueshifted as respects Milky Way and Us (US also, i.e. USA).<br /><br />OK, how many galaxies are blueshifted in respects to Milky Way?????
 
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newtonian

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Calli - Thank you for saying "I'm sorry." That is a mark of a good person.<br /><br />I'm sorry I offend some by my frequent use of the Bible - but that is my personality, I am Bible oriented - also science oriented.<br /><br />Well, you inspired me to add more scientific thread questions in this section - and we can't agree on everything (though those of my faith virtually do - but not on favorite scientific models necessarily- just the more important things.).<br /><br />So, to repeat my above added question: How do we find how many galaxies are blueshifted in respects to the Milky Way?<br /><br />I know that galaxies closer to the Great Attractor would tend to be approaching that 'center of gravity' faster.<br /><br />Note the center of gravity could be an average - there could be very little at the exact center of gravity.<br /><br />Then again, as per your posts....
 
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newtonian

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alokmohan - As Calli and harmonicaman noted, there is a Great Attractor.<br /><br />Actually, there is more than one - this has been known for some time:<br /><br />"Still another problem for the big bang has come from steadily mounting evidence of “bubbles” in the universe that are 100 million light-years in size, with galaxies on the outside and voids inside. Margaret Geller, John Huchra, and others at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found what they call a great wall of galaxies some 500 million light-years in length across the northern sky. Another group of astronomers, who became known as the Seven Samurai, have found evidence of a different cosmic conglomeration, which they call the Great Attractor, located near the southern constellations of Hydra and Centaurus. Astronomers Marc Postman and Tod Lauer believe something even bigger must lie beyond the constellation Orion, causing hundreds of galaxies, including ours, to stream in that direction like rafts on a sort of “river in space.”" - "Awake!," 1/22/96, p. 5<br /><br />That was from 10 years ago, clearly we know more now. But we should take note that two (2) Great Attractors are referred to above: <br /><br />1. One near the southern constellations of Hydra and Centaurus.<br /><br />2. Another much larger Great Attractor in the direction of Orion but well beyond those Milky Way stars (obviously).<br /><br />Are these 2 Great Attactors related (I am not so familiar with constellation directions)?
 
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newtonian

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nexium (Neil) - Is that the reason we can't find blue-shifted galaxies beyond the Great Attractor heading towards it and us from thje opposite direction: expansion rate of space?<br /><br />Or is it, as harmonicaman implied in his post, that there is another Great Attractor beyond which is pulling the Great Attractor and all gravitationally bound (or unbound but attracted) galaxies in a direction away from us?<br /><br />That should be able to be determined by angular motions of other galaxies in between - but how do you determine angular motion by red shifting (or blue shifting)?
 
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harmonicaman

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As originally described, the Great Attractor was thought to be an "Impossible" concentration of mass on the other side of the Milky Way which we could not observe because it was obscurred by galactic debris -- our own galaxy blocks our visual view of about 25% of the rest of the universe.<br /><br />Recent x-ray observations, which can penetrate the dust, have shown that the Great Attractor is actually multiple local groups beyond our galaxy, so the "Impossible" concentration of "m" (mass) likely does not exist. <br /><br />NED (NASA's Extragalactic Database) has identified 2303 Blue Shifted extragalactic objects. (This 'search' is a tad slow to load...)
 
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dragon04

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Okay. For argument's sake, let's say that the GA is at any arbitrary "fixed" point of visible space that you wish.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Looking in the direction of the great attractor, most of the closer galaxies should be red shifted</font><br /><br />I'm inclined to disagree with this statement. If you mean galaxies closer to us. Bear with me. That would depend in part on their positions relative to us in 3 dimensional space. If you think about galaxies as discreet points in a 3 dimensional "sphere", a significant number of galaxies should be converging on the same target as the Milky way is.<br /><br />I'm getting in a bit over my head here, but each point would have a unique vector inbound to the GA. I'll use an isocoles triangle as an example. As we leave the base of the triangle and head towards its vertex, the guys on the other side of the base do the same.<br /><br />The only way that the other guys would look red shifted to us would be if their velocity to the vertex outpaced the change in their narrowing distance with respect to our position, right?<br /><br />Harmonicaman posted that there are 2303 catalogued blue shifted extragalactic objects. I should think that figure would be higher on orders of magnitude if there is a GA.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>
 
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newtonian

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harmonicaman - Hmm - I tentatively question your conclusion that there is no actual Great Attractor.<br /><br />Meanwhile, examining your link - can you narrow that down to galaxies?<br /><br />The following object is approaching us very fast, from the list:<br /><br />357 *6dF J0236523-555446 02h35m21.0s -56d07m45s VisS -9461 -0.031557 <br /><br />That is - 9461 Kilometers per second blue shifted!<br /><br />What kind of object is that?????
 
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harmonicaman

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<i>"I tentatively question your conclusion that there is no actual Great Attractor."</i><br /><br />I don't deny that a lot of mass is being pulled towards a specific point in space; but I think the cause is lots of little bunches of mass (other galaxies and galactic clusters) rather than one huge "Impossibly" massive object.<br /><br /><i>"Meanwhile, examining your link - can you narrow that down to galaxies?"</i><br /><br />I believe they are all galaxies since they are all extragalactic objects.<br /><br /><i>"The following object is approaching us very fast, from the list: <br /><br />357 *6dF J0236523-555446 02h35m21.0s -56d07m45s VisS -9461 -0.031557 <br /><br />That is - 9461 Kilometers per second blue shifted! What kind of object is that?"</i><br /><br />It's the Starburst Galaxy Mkn 357! <br /><br />
 
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newtonian

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harnonicaman- How did you find out the name of the galaxy (#357 on the list)?<br /><br />How do you determine which of these blue shifted galaxies and whatever will end up gravitationally bound to Milky Way and or the mass of matter causing the effect known as the Great Attractor [I agree it is a center of gravity due to mulitple attractors.]?<br /><br />Are any of these blue shifted objects located beyond the center of gravity of the Great Attractor(s)?<br /><br />Is there a preference in direction or trajectory for these blue shifted objects?
 
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thespeculator

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I would guess that whatever the great attractor is, it would probably be some sort of black hole or group of black holes. So if there are galaxies going towards it on the other side, it would catch the light and keep us from seeing them.
 
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newtonian

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TheSpeculator - That would only be true for a very narrow line of sight - as black holes are quite small. Galaxies even slightly off the line of sight would be seen - unless they are accelerated FTL away from us by a more distant Great Attractor near our universe's visiblitiy horizon!<br /><br />Aren't there red shifted galaxies on this general line of sight direction and beyond the area of the Great Attractor(s)?
 
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dragon04

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Again, Newtonian, a GA should have some definite, observable impact relative to us if it both existed and affected us.<br /><br />We know that there are "attractors". For example, we're steaming towards the Local Group.<br /><br />The question would be (in terms of tens or hundreds of millions of LY) what geometry of space and expansion allows this to happen?<br /><br />The bottom line is that we are moving towards some stuff. We are moving away from most (observable) stuff. But the fact that we ARE moving away from "most stuff" implies to me that there is not one collection of mass that's significant enough to draw most observable objects towards it.<br /><br />I guess the converse argument would be that all that red-shifted stuff is moving towards the GA that we are escaping.<br /><br />But if that were the case, it would not explain that in every direction we look, things are red shifted. If I can look omnidirectionally and see red shift, then the GA couldn't possibly lie within known, 3 dimensional physical space.<br /><br />And at that point, I can't make further comments outside the Phenomena threads. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>
 
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