Talk:Great Attractor

What?

"The dark flow is a velocity tendency of galaxies to move in the direction that was formerly thought to be caused by the Great Attractor, but are now theorized to be outside the observable universe."

What is a velocity tendency? What are theorized to be outside the observable universe?

74.192.15.216 (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

What is the Great Attractor?

So what is this gravity anonymous? A blackhole? (--61.64.74.148 (talk · contribs), 10 June 2004)

If I understand this correctly, it's too large to be a hypermass. (--Stargoat, 14 July 2004)

What is a "hypermass", and why can't this be one? (--66.156.239.23 (talk · contribs), 5 August 2004)

The most down to earth theory would be that the Great Attractor is a dense collection of galaxies. We can't see it, at least not with current technology, like we can with the Virgo cluster, because it is in the galactic plane, so we need to look through all of the "light pollution" from the stars in the Milky Way. Salleman (5 June 2005)

"Hypermass" is another term for black hole, no longer in common usage (though it crops up occasionally).--Christopher Thomas 01:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could it be a complex spacetime fold,which magnifies gravity?

It could be, but why would we even begin to think about such complex and improbable things like that when regular old matter seems to do the trick? --Gwern (contribs) 20:46 3 December 2006 (GMT)

I personally think that it is a location in space where there is a high concentration of dark matter. It may account for the huge mass in the region. Solidus469

Possibly a black hole with so much mass that it makes a hundred thousand galaxies look pretty close to zero (as in closer than we've gotten to absolute zero) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.89.79.192 (talk) 01:56, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If it was caused by a HUGE mass concentration then objects would accelerate towards it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armchairphysicist (talk • contribs) 20:31, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

They do, but the space rug gets pulled out from under them faster by dark energy. Just wait sixty million years for it to rotate out the Zone of Avoidance so we can see it. Hcobb (talk) 15:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Distances

--Just curious...the Virgo supercluster article states that this supercluster is 200 mil LYs in diameter, and this article claims the Great Attractor is (recently measured) 250 mil LYs away from us and is at the center of the supercluster. Can anyone explain this discrepancy? --Jleon 15:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the discrepancy is due to the fact that our measurements of distance at those ranges aren't very accurate, though accuracy is improving. --Christopher Thomas 17:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Moving away from each other

Is it true that the galaxies in the local supercluster are all receding from each other? I'm hazy on whether or not the supercluster is gravitationally bound (which would mean they weren't receding). --Christopher Thomas 17:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Technically, That's not possible.--File:Nuvola apps kcmmemory.pngMac Lover ^Talk 17:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Clarify, please (starting with what you're calling impossible, then why). --Christopher Thomas 22:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If you imagine 2 ants on opposite of a balloon as its blown up. Both are walking towards the end. Although they are walking to the same spot the are getting further appart as the balloon expands. So yes, it can be gravitationally bound while still moving apart. As it gets further apart though some parts will no longer be bound, as gravitational affect decrease with distance. Thats enough abstract thought for me for tonight. --LiamE 00:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider a system like that to be gravitationally bound in an expanding universe, precisely because the components have net motion away from each other, even if local motion is in the direction of the center of the system. For an example of a system I'd call "bound", consider a hydrogen atom, or the Earth in orbit about the Sun). In both of these examples, the net effect of cosmic expansion is to add a radial acceleration term when you set up the equations of the system, causing the stable orbit radius to be (very) slightly shorter than it would be in the absence of expansion, allowing increased attractive forces to produce an effect that exactly balances the acceleration due to metric expansion of space. Before anyone objects, note that I'm not claiming that metric expansion itself applies a force - instead, I'm treating it as causing _acceleration_ when the system equations are set up using proper distance instead of comoving distance. --Christopher Thomas 00:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Updates?

An update to this article based on this source [1] might be useful (or related material) 70.51.11.219 (talk) 08:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Consideration might also be given to doing more than just referencing Dark Flow in the "See Also" section. Astronomers who have recently noted this "new find" apparently missed that what they call Dark Flow is heading toward the same area of space where the Great Attractor was first reported in 1973! So it's evident that they have rediscovered the Great Attractor!

97.103.58.89 (talk) 11:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)Paine Ellsworth painius@aol.com

Why is the dark flow section of this so opinionated and without sources? (data from Planck not worth mentioning and should be removed) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armchairphysicist (talk • contribs) 19:43, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

In Fiction

Can we get some more specific information about why Aldaron is repeatedly wiping out the In Fiction content? 66.30.113.23 (talk) 18:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Because these sections are intended for cases where the article's topic is actually referenced in the cited work of fiction, not just as a list of every place where the same words happen to be used in a script. — Aldaron • T/C 18:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm referring to Men In Black, how do you know they weren't referring to this object? It was a movie about extraterrestrial beings residing on Earth, and the words "great attractor" were referenced in a joke. If they weren't referring to this, what were they talking about? 66.30.113.23 (talk) 04:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

They were picking a sciencey-sounding name and applying it to an alien, without regard for what the sciency-sounding name actually meant. I enjoyed the movie, but I agree with removing that reference from the list. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The the MiB reference doesn't belong here. — Aldaron • T/C 16:23, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. Kay's line in MiB is obviously a humorous reference to the unsolved nature of the scientific phenomenon. And that there has to be a special comment in the article to keep people from adding the reference there shows how many people get this! --Steve Foerster (talk) 19:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Get it wrong, you mean. — Aldaron • T/C 01:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

What makes you so certain that everyone is wrong except you? Hellbus (talk) 22:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

For the record, Great Attractor isn't very scientific-sounding. It's a clear reference, not a coincidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.36.177 (talk) 07:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is the official policy, but you guys would do a favour if you'd remove nonrelevant in fiction catalog entries from scientific articles. The Pratchett one is one of those. Yes, maybe the Great Attractor has been mentioned there in Reaper Man, which IS a good book. So has been mentioned 'toilet', 'guts' and 'balls'. It does not mean that a complete listing of references should be added to every article. It is near that authors start adding random keywords to plots in order to get their name and book mentioned all around Wikipedia. 91.152.66.251 (talk) 11:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed ★NealMcB★ (talk) 14:31, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Does someone here perhaps actually know the writers, and could actually figure out if the line was indeed referring to the astronomical concept? True, unless they mentioned it at Comic-Con and thus was a semi-reliable source (a transcript of the session backed up by a videotape) it couldn't be included in the article. But at least it would be included on this page, as inquiring minds do apparently want to know. Jimw338 (talk) 01:56, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

spiral hypergalaxy

I saw on the fifth episode of this television program an astronomer showing a picture of galaxy distributions around the area of the sky obscurred by the milky way, with each galaxy represented by a dot. The dots took the structure of a spiral galaxy, and it was clear to my own eyes, and the astronomer thus argued that the great attractor must be a galaxy of galaxies: a structure of galaxies forming a hypergalaxy, in the same way stars form a galaxy. I was very intrigued, and yet I have never since heard anything like it, and I would expect that the hypothesis was rejected in science. Does anyone have information on how the rejection happened? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnnu (talk • contribs) 12:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A quick reply (since this is not really about the article's contents): A spiral galaxy is a strongly rotating, dynamical system. See density wave theory, for instance. That is, the stars and gas interact gravitationally; and the gas, collisionally as well; arranging themselves into a single coherent pattern over a few orbits around the center: say, 0.1-1 GY, for the Milky Way. Regardless of the arrangement of the galaxies you saw plotted, (my understanding of the construction of that pattern means that) they have not had time enough to arrange themselves into a single coherent pattern while orbiting the center. The much larger rotation region would require at least 100 times as long as for the Milky Way, over which time the general expansion of the universe would likely separate the components too widely for any coherent interactions. Jmacwiki (talk) 07:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It makes sense that it cannot happen, but the pattern seemed very clear, and I would think that the astronomical community would try to solve the puzzle on seeing the contradiction between theory and observation. Explanation on how it is impossible is not explanation for how the hypothesis was rejected. It would have to involve analysis of observational data and good argument showing that the apparent pattern is actually no pattern at all, or that it was merely an accident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnnu (talk • contribs) 14:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Merge Dark Flow

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The Dark flow article was proposed to be merged with this article in October 2010. The result of this discussion is no consensus. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  22:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

---

• Comment. It was proposed back in October 2010 that Dark Flow be merged into this article. I would agree that the flow of galaxies recently discovered called Dark Flow is a gravitational flow into the Great Attractor. The coordinates are the same. However this connection might very well be considered original research because I have yet to read that astronomers have actually made the connection between the Great Attractor and Dark Flow official. If a reliable source can be found to corroborate this connection, then I am in favor of the merge. If a reliable source cannot be found, then I'm opposed to the merge. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  01:43, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems there is no further support for a merge. I have thought about this more, and since the Dark Flow was rediscovered three years ago, I feel that it's notable enough for its own article; therefore, I no longer support this merge under any circumstances. And it makes one wonder what happened to the data and interpretations by other teams of astronomers in circa 1930, 1973 and 1978, as well as the data from pinpointing the GA in 1986? Suspicion arises when one realizes that this so-called gravity anomaly is actually strong evidence against the uniform expansion of the Universe and the Big Bang hypothesis! At any rate, it's time to close the merge and get on with the studies. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  22:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comment removal

I removed the following comment from after the Reaper Man entry in the "In fiction" section (is it really necessary?):

<!-- The line uses the same name specifically to take advantage of the low level of understanding we have of the phenomenon. The intent is to refer to the Great Attractor that we detect merely by its observable effects and enhance it with additional, unexpected information for purposes of humor. The fictional characters speaking in the exchange are in a situation which strongly implies awareness of facts which remain unknown to the scientific community at large and the entire movie to this point has been building such a conceit. Such usage is no more inappropriate, incorrect, or open to misinterpretation than the other examples in this section. -->
– Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  05:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on what I understand

The following hypothesis is based on what I know thus far to be fact and do leave room for the fact there are things I do not know.

The so called great attractor might be a solid mass I don't know and have not heard of it before but my thoughts have gravitated to the following when mentioning the big bang.

Since mass attracts other mass which we know to be gravity and the universe came out of a single speck I tend to think that like a firework it exploded into existence then rather than falling to the ground since there is no ground in space it lingered and the combined gravitational pull of all the universal objects just reversed direction and fell back into itself over time.

We know today that the universe expanse is slowing. If we could zoom out and fast forward I would imagine the firework to simply stop expanding then being coerced by the gravitation of the inner masses come falling back into itself to simply form a singular mass of proportions that are unfathomable and this would cause it to simple blow out again.

a singularity it would come to a point when the collapse was taking place that it would collapse so quickly it would be equal to imploding at the speed at which it exploded and implode through itself and bounce out into another explosion.

I would imagine this has happened many many times before and the so called big bang is not a one time event and over the span of an infinite timeline it would look like a firework simply exploding stopping then imploding over and over again.

The galaxies are simply whirlpools or turbulence of such an event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryzler (talk • contribs) 00:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Does the Great Attractor exist or not?

The introduction to this article begins, "The great attractor is...," implying that current scientific knowledge favors the Great Attractor's existence, but the Dark Flow section goes on to use the words "purported" and "formerly" in a way that suggests that the Great Attractor is merely a discredited theory from astronomy past. Which is it? 184.147.1.155 (talk) 04:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I removed "purported", because this is just name for a region of space and many reviews call this region Great Attractor. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:13, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

It is both, some people believe in it and some don't, even scientists looking at the same data are apparently coming to different interpretations of it. [2] This one seems to be the most interesting for me though [3](Armchairphysicist (talk) 14:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC))

Is it moving?

What is the Great Attractor's motion with respect to its local standard of rest (the frame in which the CMB is isotropic)? Is that known, or is the GA's existence still too speculative? JKeck (talk) 12:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Specific Location

The article indicates, "... in the direction of the constellations Triangulum Australe (The Southern Triangle) and Norma ..."

Are there scientific sources that give a location that is more specific than this? Is it possible to provide the Right Ascension and Declination for a certain epoch (e.g., J2000, J2010, or another)? Tesseract501 (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

According to what I've read, the Great Attractor is too near to the other side of the galactic plane from us for astronomers to be able to pinpoint its location. What I find curious is that the coordinates are very similar to those of the galaxy clusters associated with Dark flow. Happy New Year! Paine  01:16, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

In an interesting or twisted the proximity make sense; if Dark Flow is proven it would not seem too unexpected to have all those new galaxies radiating from or congregating to the region. Of course, it gets away from science to think about the transition points between hypothetical multiverses (i.e., do they transect or transverse) -- but ya gotta kinda expect my mind to go in that fun direction (given my screen name and all). Hoho! Oh, as far as the location coordinates, pinpointing to seconds or fractional seconds may be difficult, but I would think there must be at least hour and minute references. They know it near those constellations. Nevertheless, as you noted, I too have been unable to find more specific location data. Tesseract501 (talk) 03:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Registration of 883 galaxies

International scientists around Lister Staveley-Smith of the University of Western Australia (Perth) registered 883 new galaxies within the Great Attractor (ICRAR). Could this be interesting for the article? Source: http://www.icrar.org/news/news_items/media-releases/hidden-galaxies RIMOLA (talk) 11:01, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hyper Cluster?

My Proof

I saw and worked how this could work I check where the shapely cluster was and another cluster was close the I thought no those two can be pulling millions of galaxies so then I looked again then I saw the were all move to one spot in different ways so I thought the "hyper cluster" would need to be massive to pull on the galaxies so I think it's far but has 50 times more gravity so this is my theory is it possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Space Discoverer (talk • contribs) 22:58, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

With the GA anything is possible. The pity is that since our galaxy is heading in the general direction of the GA, and since our solar system is in the "back seat" of our galaxy, scientists are unable to make any definite measurements nor draw any certain conclusions. It's like trying to look out a car's dirty windshield from the back seat.  What's in your palette? Paine  07:49, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

A major breakthrough

The discovery, which explained a previously misunderstood phenomenon known as the Great Attractor, was a major breakthrough:

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-16-a-giant-leap-for-astronomy-another-giant-leap-for-south-africa/ Wizzy…☎ 06:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Excellent!  Paine Ellsworth  ^u/c 01:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I am not an astronomer - I would prefer an expert write it up. Wizzy…☎ 13:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Ditto.  Paine Ellsworth  ^u/c 16:26, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

This is a great find, I added a little blurb about it since it's been over a year, though I'm no expert either. The "Great Attractor" is something presented by most pop science sources as this giant fantastical mystery, when in reality it's just a simple artifact of us not being able to see behind our own galaxy's disk.Lqstuart42069 (talk) 00:26, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Mass of the Great Attractor?

Where is the reference as stated in the first paragraph that it has a mass of millions times more than the Milky Way? I couldn't find that reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wvtienen (talk • contribs)

I added a ref to a review. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:20, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Dark Flow section clarity and phrasing

The Dark Flow section of the article feels very wishy-washy, especially in the first sentence. Within the sentence "Because the expansion of the universe is credited to dark energy, it has been thought that only something equally as dark could have the power to overcome it.", what exactly does the phrase "equally as dark" mean? Dark in this sense does not have a measurable value as far as I know, we use the word dark in dark matter and dark energy to indicate that we don't understand what it actually is. It doesn't seem to make sense for something to need to be "equally as dark" to be powerful enough to overcome another force.

Where it says "it has been thought", by whom has it been thought? The only citation for this section makes no mention whatsoever of Dark Energy.

Additionally, introducing Dark Flow as "a mysterious undiscovered force" does not fit with "formal, impersonal, and dispassionate" tone, instead intentionally creating a sense of mystery. I am not knowledgeable enough on Dark Flow to write a good introduction to the topic, but a more neutral toned introduction should be used here.

Rilazy (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, deleted that section. Not related. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Anomaly

Could some expert verify that this is a Gravitational anomaly as opposed to a simple Gravity anomaly? - CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:33, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

The Great Attractor is neither a gauge anomaly nor a local deviation in Earth's gravity. It is rather a region or direction in space where mass appears to be accumulating. It is analogous to the galactic center for our galaxy but on a much much larger scale. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:54, 24 December 2023 (UTC)