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 turn ...
s of
galaxies
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, 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 System. ...
.
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
Abell 2152 is a bimodal galaxy cluster and one of three clusters comprising the Hercules Supercluster. It contains 3 BCGs; the S0 lenticular UGC 10204, the pair UGC 10187, and the SA0 unbarred lenticular CGCG 108-083. In total there are 41 gala ...
galaxy clusters.
An extremely long filament of galaxies has been found, that connects this group of clusters to the
Abell 2197 Abell may refer to:
People
*Abell (surname)
*George O. Abell, of the astronomical catalogues fame
Places
;United States
* Abell, Maryland, a location in St. Mary's County, Maryland
* Abell, a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland
* Abells Corners, ...
and
Abell 2199 pair.
in the nearby constellation
Corona Borealis is also a member.
The Hercules Superclusters are near the
Coma Supercluster, 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 ...
.
In the 1930s,
Harlow Shapley 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 in 1977, he, together with several other astronomers, presented evidence that it was indeed a supercluster that appeared in that region.
See also
*
Abell catalogue
*
Large-scale structure of the universe
The observable universe is a ball-shaped region of the universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth or its space-based telescopes and exploratory probes at the present time, because the electromagnetic radiation from these obj ...
*
List of Abell clusters
References
Hercules (constellation)
Galaxy superclusters
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