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Great Attractor |
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Great AttractorProposed concentration of mass, equivalent to tens of thousands of galaxies, that influences the movement of many galaxies, including the Milky Way Galaxy (see galaxy). In 1986 a group of astronomers noted that the Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies exhibit systematic deflections from the motion predicted by Edwin P. Hubble's theory of the expanding universe. One possible explanation is a large collection of galaxies exerting a gravitational pull on the clusters of galaxies around it; its centre would lie in the direction of the constellations Hydra or Centaurus in the southern sky, about 200 million light-years from Earth. Great Attractor [¦grāt ə′trak·tər] (astronomy) A great supercluster of galaxies and dark matter, approximately 150 × 106light-years distant, whose existence has been hypothesized to account for the peculiar motions of galaxies, including the Milky Way Galaxy. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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| ``We hope it will be something that is a great attractor of business and tourism to the San Fernando Valley. But an astronomer now says that a key assumption used in calculating the velocities of elliptical galaxies in the Great Attractor study may harbor a fatal flaw. Christ, on the other hand, is the Great Attractor, to borrow a term from the new cosmology. |
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