Indian scientists discover 'Saraswati - a supercluster of galaxies

Pune : Indian astronomers have discovered a supercluster of galaxies - as big as 20 million billion suns - which they have named it as 'Saraswati'.

“Superclusters are the largest coherent structures in the cosmic web. They are a chain of galaxies and galaxy clusters, bound by gravity, often stretching to several hundred times the size of clusters of galaxies, consisting of tens of thousands of galaxies,” the IUCAA said in a statement.

'SARASWATI' - A supercluster of galaxies

1: The newly discovered supercluster of galaxies - Saraswati - is 4,000 million light-years away from Earth. 

2: With a rough age of more than 10 billion years, its mass extends over the scale of 600 million light years.

3: The supercluster was discovered by Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune; Pratik Dabhade, IUCAA research fellow; Joe Jacob of the Newman College, Kerala; and Prakash Sarkar of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.

4: The findings of their research have been published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal, the premier research journal of the American Astronomical Society.

5: In a cluster, there are galaxies ranging from 1000 to 10000 and in a supercluster, there are clusters ranging from 40 to 43.

6: Our Galaxy belongs to a supercluster called the Laniakea supercluster.