What could it be?.. the Great Attractor....?

Question

what is this major 'stuff' that's dragging gobs of galaxies toward it?..... strong enuff to even pull galaxies on the other side of it, in spite of the movement of the Universe's expansion...."????....

nothing to look at.... no lump, black hole, horizon, just an 'area' of such massive gravity that galaxy clusters are zooming toward it, including ours.....this one site said "around 5.4 times 10^16 Solar-masses."....

one site said 'dark matter'... and something about it being partly hidden by the plane of the Milky Way.... but if there's something out there that strong, don't we have anything to 'image' it with?... and what's all that much 'dark matter' doing hanging out in one spot.. I thought it was scattered all over the place?......

it's big, strong and we can't see it.... got some more good guesses or radical theories for me to ponder?....I'd love to know what you folks think of it....

here's one site I was exploring...

http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/greatatt.h

Answer 1

A very popular theory among today's phycisists is called string theory, or now m theory.  Part of the theory recognizes that there are many other dimensions than we can detect in our everyday lives.  For instance electrons regularly flit in and out of existance......where to they go?  This area of massive gravity is thought to be dark matter, the only problem is that nobody knows what dark matter is.  This all ties in with the fact that the force of gravity is very weak.  You can pick up a chair even with the entire world pulling against it.  One suggestion has been that gravity is a force that is dominant in another dimension, and is somehow spilling over into ours.  I'm not that great at explaining it scientifically, but these Nova shows are really interesting.

This one is called Most of the Universe is Missing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwLdfVcjh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P08SFn6W...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L15TMetlp...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IysI3jO5...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5DkkTvAz...

There are also many informative shows to watch on the Nova website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs/in...

Suggestions:  When you go to the site click on the physics and math section, there you can watch shows.........the ones I think relate the most are Dark Matter, The Elegant Universe, and if you click on Recent, Nova scienceNow episode 11 is good.

If you are really interested, google "the god particle" this research is some of the most recent experiments that physicists have been doing to try and understand this strange universe.

Answer 2

In addition to matter pulling us, it seems possible that the local void is pushing us.  A paper came out last year suggesting that dark energy from the local void may provide part of the answer.  It's at least in the right direction.

Answer 3

The so-called 'Great Attractor' towards which the Milky Way and the Local Cluster is being drawn has been identified as the super galactic cluster known as Abell3627. Image of Abell3627 on this website =>http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960...

More details on this website =>http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2...

Answer 4

That area of space is hidden by the dust and gas clouds of our own Galaxy.  We'd have to send a probe to at least 50 light-years to be able to see around the problem.

So far, the furthest probes we have sent (Voyager probes) have not even made it to 1 light-year.  They were launched 30 years ago.  And they are not equipped to "image" that region when they get far enough in 1500 years.