Pune Astrophysicists Capture The World’s Attention With Their Latest Discovery

Space is big. There’s no doubt about that, its infinite majesty sprawls farther than the human mind can hope to comprehend. But one step at a time we’re moving closer to a place where the human race better understands the immense star structures that surround our small planet. The most recent outer space discovery was revealed by a team of astrophysicists from Pune’s Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA).

They announced yesterday that they located a supercluster that exists over 650 million light years in its expanse, containing over 10,000 galaxies in 42 clusters which equals the size of almost 20 million billion suns. At 4 billion light years away it’s hard to fathom just how much of our universe still remains a mystery.

The astrophysicists chose to name the supercluster ‘Saraswati’ meaning, ‘ever-flowing stream with many pools’, after the Hindu goddess of wisdom and wealth. According to The Hindu this significant find was spotted by, “Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student of 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.” Once again India is pushing the forefront of outer space discovery, asserting its presence in the global effort to uncover more about the galaxies that surround us.

The satellites were discovered by Somak Raychoudhury, director of IUCAA

The supercluster exists over 650 million light years in its expanse, containing over 10,000 galaxies in 42 clusters which equals 20 million billion suns. At 4 billion light years away it’s hard to fathom just how much of our universe still remains a mystery.

The cluster flies in the face of the ‘Cold dark matter’ model of evolution which state that small structures like galaxies form first, which congregate into larger structures. Though minute, this discovery goes along way towards explaining the origin of the universe and as the first discovery of its sort made by Indian astronomers solidifies their spot in the global space race.