What is the “Virgo Supercluster of galaxies?”?
Virgo Supercluster The Virgo Supercluster or Local Supercluster is the galactic supercluster that contains the Local Group, the latter which, in its turn, contains the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Disk and halo The Supercluster consists of two components: disk component and halo component. The flattened disk component has a pancake-like shape, and contains 60% of the Virgo Supercluster’s luminous galaxies. The halo component consists of many elongated objects, and contains 40% of the Virgo Supercluster’s luminous galaxies. Diameter The diameter of the Supercluster is about 200 million light years; it contains about 100 groups and clusters of galaxies and is dominated by the Virgo cluster near its center. Our Local Group is located near the edge and is being drawn inward toward the Virgo cluster. Divisions The Virgo Supercluster is subdivided into groups of clusters called galaxy clouds. Three clouds are on the disk component: Virgo cluster, Canes Venaciti Cloud and Virgo II Cloud.
The Virgo Cluster is a cluster of galaxies at a distance of approximately 59 ± 4 Mly (18.0 ± 1.2 Mpc)[2] away in the constellation Virgo. Comprising approximately 1300 (and possibly up to 2000) member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the larger Local Supercluster, of which the Local Group is an outlying member. It is estimated that its mass is 1.2×1015 M☉ out to 8 degrees of the cluster’s center or a radius of about 2.2 Mpc.[2] Many of the brighter galaxies in this cluster, including the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, were discovered in the late 1770s and early 1780s and subsequently included in Charles Messier’s catalogue of non-cometary fuzzy objects. Described by Messier as nebulae without stars, their true nature was not recognized until the 1920s. The cluster subtends a maximum arc of approximately 8 degrees centered in the constellation Virgo. Many of the member galaxies of the cluster are visible with a small telescope. The cluster is a fairly heterogeneous mixture
