A new probability map of the universe surrounding the Milky Way shows that our galaxy is probably part of a larger “gravity pool” than previously thought. The area of ​​the universe we live in may be much larger than we think. A new study suggests that the intergalactic supercluster that includes the Milky Way may be part of a “gravity basin” 10 times larger than the place we currently call home.

The universe is full of gravitational basins (BOAs), which are regions where everything in it is pulled inward by the gravitational force of a large object. BOATS can be stacked like matryoshka dolls. For example, the Moon orbits the Earth, which in turn orbits the Sun, and the rest of the Solar System orbits the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

But the story doesn’t end there. The next layer of the BOA baby is the Local Group, which includes the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, and the Triangle galaxy, as well as smaller companion galaxies such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The next layers are the Virgo cluster, which contains about 2,000 galaxies, and the larger Virgo cluster. The last known layer is Laniākea (Hawaiian for “huge sky”), a supercluster first discovered in 2014 that contains approximately 100,000 galaxies and spans approximately 500 million light-years.

But in a new study published Sept. 27 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers analyzed the relative motions of more than 56,000 galaxies to create a 3-D “probabilistic” map of all BOAs surrounding the Milky Way. This raised the plausible possibility that our home galaxy is part of an even larger BOA (Shapley Concentration) with a volume 10 times larger than that of Laniakea. (Scientists already knew about the existence of the Shapley condensate, but previously did not believe it affected the Milky Way.)

“Perhaps it is not surprising that the further we look into space, the more we find that our home supercluster is more connected and larger than we thought,” said cosmologist Noam Libeskind of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, one of the study’s authors. Germany. says in the statement. “It’s exciting to find that there’s a strong possibility that we could be part of a much larger structure.”

Currently, researchers, many of whom were involved in the discovery of Laniakea, believe there is a 60% chance that the Milky Way is at the Shapley concentration. The uncertainty is largely due to the high level of error in measuring the velocities of distant galaxies, as well as the existence of intergalactic dark matter, which can exert a strong gravitational influence over large regions of space without being visible.

If true, the new discoveries could also mean that the Milky Way is not part of Laniakea and that the celestial supercluster may not even exist. Instead, it may just be the outer part of the Shapley concentration, the researchers wrote in a statement.

The map shows dozens of objects billions of light-years away around the Shapley concentration, including the South Pole Wall, the Volopas Gap, and the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster. The largest BOA on the map is the Sloan Great Wall, which spans approximately 1.4 billion light-years.

While the new map helps us better define our place in the broader universe, it also raises the possibility that we may be missing more information, the researchers write.

“The problem with this discovery is that our space probes are not yet large enough to map all of these huge basins,” University of Hawaii astronomer Ehsan Kurkchi, one of the study’s authors, said in another statement. “We’re still looking through giant eyes, but even those eyes may not be big enough to capture the full picture of our universe.”