The Ladder of Scale · structure
Virgo Cluster
Cluster · 15 million ly
- Coordinates
- 12h 30m 47.8s +12° 23′ 06.7″ · NAME Virgo Cluster via Sc
- RA (deg)
- 187.6991
- Dec (deg)
- 12.3852
- Within
- Local Supercluster (Virgo)
- Distance (ly)
- 54000000
- Recognised
- 1781
- Population
- ~1,500 galaxies
- Size (ly)
- 15000000
- Kind
- Cluster
- Redshift
- 0.0036
Notes
The nearest large cluster and the gravitational anchor of our supercluster, with the giant elliptical M87 — and its imaged black hole — at the centre. Catalogued as a knot of nebulae by Messier long before anyone knew what it was. Its distance is measured directly, by Cepheids and the tip of the red giant branch, and disagrees with its redshift by about a quarter: we are falling toward it at some 300 km/s, which subtracts from its apparent recession.
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