The Hercules Superclusters (SCl 160) refers to a set of two nearby

supercluster A supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups; they are among the largest known structures in the universe. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy group (which contains more than 54 galaxies), which in tu ...

s of

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

. Relative to other local superclusters, Hercules is considered particularly large, being approximately 330 Mly in diameter. The Northern Local Supervoid lies in front of the superclusters, and is as big as the superclusters themselves. The redshifts of the member galaxies lie between 0.0304 and 0.0414. The region includes Abell 2147, Abell 2151 (Hercules Cluster), and Abell 2152

galaxy clusters A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. Clusters consist of galax ...

. An extremely long

filament The word filament, which is descended from Latin ''filum'' meaning " thread", is used in English for a variety of thread-like structures, including: Astronomy * Galaxy filament, the largest known cosmic structures in the universe * Solar filament ...

of galaxies has been found, that connects this group of clusters to the Abell 2197 and

Abell 2199 Abell 2199 is a galaxy cluster in the Abell catalogue featuring the brightest cluster galaxy NGC 6166, a cD galaxy. Abell 2199 is the definition of a Bautz-Morgan type I cluster due to NGC 6166. See also * Hercules (Chinese astronomy) * List ...

pair.

Abell 2162 Abell 2162 is a galaxy cluster in the Abell catalogue located in the constellation Corona Borealis. It is a member of the Hercules Superclusters, the redshifts of the member galaxies of which lie between 0.0304 and 0.0414. The cluster hosts a mas ...

in the nearby constellation

Corona Borealis Corona Borealis is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Its brightest stars form a sem ...

is also a member. The Hercules Superclusters are near the

Coma Supercluster The Coma Supercluster (SCl 117) is a nearby supercluster of galaxies that includes the Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) and the Leo Cluster (Abell 1367). Located 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices, it is in the cen ...

, helping make up part of the

CfA2 Great Wall The Great Wall (also called Coma Wall), sometimes specifically referred to as the CfA2 Great Wall, is an immense galaxy filament. It is one of the largest known superstructures in the observable universe. This structure was discovered c. 1989 b ...

. In the 1930s,

Harlow Shapley Harlow Shapley (November 2, 1885 – October 20, 1972) was an American astronomer, who served as head of the Harvard College Observatory from 1921–1952, and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal. Shapley used Cepheid var ...

studied the structure of the distribution of galaxies in the constellation of Hercules, and was probably first to discover the existence of a supercluster in that region. However, this was not confirmed until the 1970s. In 1976, Massimo Tarenghi suggested that the A2151 cluster was part of a single supercluster, and at a conference in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

in 1977, he, together with several other astronomers, presented evidence that it was indeed a supercluster that appeared in that region.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hercules Superclusters Hercules (constellation) Galaxy superclusters