Science / Medicine : A ‘Super-Cluster’ of Stars

A University of Hawaii astronomer has found that the Milky Way galaxy, which includes the Earth’s sun, is part of a “super-cluster complex” of galaxies 100 times larger than any previously identified structure in the universe.

Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy believes that the Milky Way is near one end of a super-cluster containing millions of galaxies that stretch across 10% of the observable universe. The complex is so large, Tully said, that light leaving the sun would take almost 1 billion years to reach the other end of the structure. He said the complex is about 150 million light-years across.

Tully said he used data collected by earlier astronomers and processed it through a computer to establish the shape and size of the super-cluster.