If you ever want to feel insignificant, you have only to read about the latest astrophysics discoveries.
Recently there was an announcement that the largest cluster or superstructure of galaxies, named Quipu, had been “discovered.”
The Quipu superstructure is massive. It has 200 quadrillion stars and is 1.3 billion light years across. Below on the left is a map of the universe that shows the Quipu superstructure (and the next four largest superstructures). The colored dots represent different superstructures. The red dots denote Quipu. Yellow is the Sculptor-Pegasus superstructure, green is Serpens-Corona Borealis, purple is Hercules and blue is Shapley.
What is that white space that looks like a wishbone in the middle of the map? That is the “Zone of Avoidance.” In this region, the thick dust and numerous stars of our galaxy block and scatter visible light, effectively “hiding” background galaxies.
You must be very smart to identify a superstructure of galaxies. In fact, it takes a team of very smart people to figure this out.
When they formed the team, they did not ask me to join them. Given their need for smart people, I would have skipped me too.
On the right is the Lanailkea superstructure (that the Earth is in) which only has 10 quadrillion stars. The Milky Way (our galaxy) is the red dot. Our galaxy is insignificant in this medium sized superstructure which itself is insignificant when stacked up against the really big superstructures. To make us even more insignificant, there are an estimated 100 billion to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. Our sun is one of them.
In addition to being smart enough to figure all of this out, astrophysicists come up with some pretty catchy names, e.g., the “Zone of Avoidance.” Another cool name is “the Great Attractor.”
.The Great Attractor is a mysterious gravitational anomaly located roughly 150–250 million light-years away from Earth. It appears to be a massive concentration of matter that is pulling galaxies, including our own Milky Way, toward it at a speed of around 360 miles per second.
Additional catchy names.
| Astrophysics Name | What it is |
| The Great Nothing | A massive region – 330 million light years across – that has only 60 galaxies |
| Multiverse | A theoretical concept suggesting that our universe is just one of many universes that exist—each potentially having its own unique laws of physics, constants, dimensions, and forms of matter and energy. |
| Spaghettification | Used to describe the extreme stretching and compression of objects into long, thin shapes—like spaghetti—due to intense tidal forces near a black hole. |
| The Local Bubble | A vast, roughly 1,000-light-year-wide cavity in the interstellar medium surrounding our Solar System. It’s a region of hot, low-density gas that was likely formed by the blasts of 10-20 ancient supernovae that occurred 10-20 million years ago. The Local Bubble is yellow below. All the dots and names are stars. Our solar system is in the middle. |
As you can tell, I find all this astrophysics stuff to be very, very amazing. The immensity of the universe is amazing. The fact that our planet is surrounded by a ring of supernova debris is amazing.
Not only is it amazing but this astrophysics stuff is very, very beautiful. Beautiful because the images of galaxies and other structures are beautiful (the two photos above are examples from zillions of galaxies).
We are fortunate that we live in a universe where there are astrophysicists who illuminate this beauty. Even if a consequence is that they point out how insignificant we are.