Editing Great Attractor (section)

{{Short description|Region of overdensity of galaxies within the local supercluster}} 
[[Image:2MASS LSS chart-NEW Nasa.jpg|right|thumb|upright=2.6|Panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky. The location of the Great Attractor is shown following the long blue arrow at bottom right.]]
[[File:Gran Atractor.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|[[Hubble Space Telescope]] image showing part of the [[Norma Cluster]], including [[ESO 137-002]]]]

The '''Great Attractor''' is a region of gravitational attraction in [[intergalactic space]] and the apparent central gravitational point of the [[Laniakea Supercluster]] of galaxies that includes the [[Milky Way]] galaxy, as well as about 100,000 other galaxies. 

The observed attraction suggests a localized concentration of mass having the order of 10<sup>16</sup> solar masses.<ref name=BehindMilkyWay/> However, it is obscured by the Milky Way's [[galactic plane]], lying behind the [[Zone of Avoidance]] (ZOA), so that in visible light wavelengths, the Great Attractor is difficult to observe directly.<ref name="UniverseToday2014">{{cite news |url=https://www.universetoday.com/113150/what-is-the-great-attractor/ |title=What is the Great Attractor? |date=2014-07-14 |website=Universe Today |access-date=2018-06-24 |df=dmy-all |language=en-US}}</ref> 

The attraction is observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated clusters over a region of hundreds of millions of [[light-year]]s across the [[universe]]. These galaxies are observable above and below the Zone of Avoidance; all are [[redshift]]ed in accordance with the [[Hubble flow]], indicating that they are receding relative to the Milky Way and to each other, but the variations in their redshifts are large enough and regular enough to reveal that they are slightly drawn towards the attraction. The variations in their redshifts are known as [[Peculiar velocity|''peculiar velocities'']], and cover a range from about +700&nbsp;km/s to −700&nbsp;km/s, depending on the angular deviation from the direction to the Great Attractor.
The Great Attractor itself is moving towards the [[Shapley Supercluster]].<ref name=UniverseToday2014/>