Superclusters, a group of clusters of galaxies, are the largest structures of stars, planets and other heavenly bodies in the universe, and very few of them are known. So, our discovery is a rare find,” Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, who was part of the team of scientists that discovered the supercluster, told The Indian Express. Galaxies are themselves made of billions of stars and planets, and a cluster typically contains several hundreds of these galaxies. Sankhyayan said the Saraswati supercluster was estimated to have a mass of 2 x 1016 (twenty thousand trillion) suns, and could contain thousands of suns, besides having billions of stars, planets, other bodies, gases and dark matter. The study of Saraswati therefore is likely to offer more insight into our understanding of dark energy,” Sankhyayan said.

Source: Indian Express July 14, 2017 00:00 UTC