The Universe Is Pulling and Pushing Our Galaxy

Our galaxy is not just being pulled through space. On the opposite side, a giant empty void seems to push us away.

Far beyond the Great Attractor lies the Shapley Supercluster, the largest known concentration of galaxies in our corner of the universe, with the mass of tens of thousands of galaxies.

Shapley's immense gravity is tugging our whole neighborhood toward it. But that is only half the story. On the exact opposite side, astronomers have mapped a vast, unusually empty region. With almost nothing there to pull us back, that emptiness effectively gives us a push. They call it the Dipole Repeller. So our galaxy is caught between two forces: a supercluster pulling one way, a void pushing the other.

Together, that push and pull carry the Milky Way through space at hundreds of kilometers every second. We are not drifting through a calm universe, but being swept along by the gravity of structures far larger than almost anything we can easily see.

Follow The Cosmic Vault — the universe is stranger than you think.