Hubble’s Galaxy Cluster Cornucopia

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

At first glance, this image is dominated by the vibrant glow of the swirling spiral to the lower left of the frame. However, this galaxy is far from the most interesting spectacle here — behind it sits a galaxy cluster.

Galaxies are not randomly distributed in space; they swarm together, gathered up by the unyielding hand of gravity, to form groups and clusters. The Milky Way is a member of the Local Group, which is part of the Virgo Cluster, which in turn is part of the 100,000-galaxy-strong Laniakea Supercluster.

Source / Image Courtesy

Deep Sky recently produced several space visualization animations for Burmer Music and Composition Lab. One of the sequences was visualizing our neighborhood of 100,000 galaxies; Laniakea.