Object Analysis

The Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space at the center of the Laniakea Supercluster, in which the Milky Way is located. It creates a localized concentration of mass tens of thousands of times more massive than the Milky Way.

All galaxies in our local universe, including the Milky Way and Andromeda, are flowing toward the Great Attractor at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second. It lies in the "Zone of Avoidance," a region of the sky obscured by the dust of our own Milky Way, making it difficult to study.

X-ray observations have revealed that the Great Attractor is actually the Norma Cluster (Abell 3627), a massive cluster of galaxies. However, even this cluster isn't massive enough to explain the full motion, suggesting an even larger structure, the Shapley Supercluster, lies further behind it, pulling on everything.