Our Milky Way's 'Zone of Avoidance' holds a galaxy supercluster with 30,000 trillion times the sun's mass

image via Space.com

May 4, 2026, 3:00 PM

• •The Vela Supercluster spans 300 million light-years and is located approximately 870 million light-years away.
• •It contains 33,800 trillion solar masses of material.
• •The supercluster's gravitational pull exceeds that of the 'Great Attractor'.
• •The discovery utilized data from the Southern African Large Optical Telescope (SALT) and the MeerKAT radio telescope.

The Vela Supercluster, a massive structure hidden behind the Milky Way, has been revealed to be even larger than previously thought. Discovered in 2016, the supercluster's gravitational influence affects the movements of galaxies, causing 'cosmic flows'. New research, utilizing advanced telescopes and data from the CosmicFlows catalogue, has mapped the Vela Supercluster, finding it comparable in mass to the Shapley Supercluster. This discovery offers a more complete understanding of the nearby universe's structure.

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