“Council of the Giants”: Our galactic neighbors

“Council of the Giants”: Our galactic neighbors

Our planet revolves around a yellow dwarf named the Sun, which in turn rotates around the center of the Milky Way - a spiral galaxy that is more than 100,000 light-years wide. The Milky Way contains about 400 billion stars and at least as many alien worlds. In addition to our galaxy, our Local Group contains another 54 galaxies. The local group is about 3 million light-years across. The Milky Way and another Andromeda spiral galaxy are the king and queen of this region, the two largest galaxies in the Local Group.

However, behind the Local Group, there is some uncertainty in the distribution of galaxies.

“Council of the Giants”: Our galactic neighbors

In a new paper published in the Monthly Notices magazine of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Marshall McCall, from the University of York at Toronto, outlined bright galaxies within 35 million light years from the Milky Way, expanding our intergalactic horizons.

"All bright galaxies within 20 million light years, including our Milky Way, are grouped into the Local Layer, about 34 million light years wide and only 1.5 million light years thick," says McCall in a press Release York University. "The Milky Way and Andromeda are surrounded by twelve large galaxies, creating a ring 24 million light-years wide. This“ Council of Giants ”sits in the Local Group." In the video shown above, McCall graphically displays the “Local Layer” in a simple 3-D model that clearly illustrates the intergalactic structure.

“Council of the Giants”: Our galactic neighbors

Some information about the possible evolution of galaxies (and the stars contained in them) can be found in this map. Twelve of the 14 giant galaxies in the Local Layer are spiral, that is, they are a flat disk with spiral arms rotating around the central core. The remaining galaxies are bloated elliptical galaxies that do not have any disk or spiral structure.

“Council of the Giants”: Our galactic neighbors

Local group of galaxies

Interestingly, the two ellipses located at both ends of the “Council of Giants” are two galaxies that at the beginning of their evolution were ejected by powerful stellar winds capable of pushing gas to the Local Group, which in turn helped build the massive spirals of the Milky Way and Andromeda. In addition, the direction of rotation of the “Council of Giants” is concentrated around a small circle in the center, which could be explained by the gravitational influence of the Milky Way and Andromeda, when the Universe was smaller. In other words, the modern large-scale structure and direction of rotation of galaxies contained in the “Council of Giants” were formed from the earliest stage of the evolution of the Local layer. Moreover, the current orderly arrangement of the galaxies contained in the Local Layer indicates the presence of dark matter in the very early stages of galaxy formation. The large-scale structure of dark matter, which is believed to be 85 percent of the mass of the Universe, could be organized as a huge network with the help of filaments connecting separate regions with gravitational centers around which galaxies and groups of galaxies are formed.

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