No Arabic abstract
We compare the measured peculiar velocities of 98 local (<150/h Mpc) type Ia supernovae (SNIa) with predictions derived from the PSCz. There is excellent agreement between the two datasets with a best fit beta_I (=Omega_m^0.6/b_I) of 0.55+-0.06. Subsets of the SNIa dataset are further analysed and the above result is found to be robust with respect to culls by distance, host-galaxy extinction and to the reference frame in which the analysis is carried out. We briefly review the peculiar motions in the direction of the Great Attractor. Most clusters in this part of the sky out to a distance of 14,000 km/s, i.e. those closer than the Shapley Concentration, have sizable positive peculiar velocities, i.e. (~ +400 km/s). There are nine local SNIa in the GA direction that are in the foreground of Shapley. All these SNIa have positive peculiar velocities. Hence both the cluster and local SNIa data strongly support the idea of a sizable flow into Shapley.
Dust and stars in the plane of the Milky Way create a Zone of Avoidance in the extragalactic sky. Galaxies are distributed in gigantic labyrinth formations, filaments and great walls with occasional dense clusters. They can be traced all over the sky, except where the dust within our own galaxy becomes too thick - leaving about 25% of the extragalactic sky unaccounted for. Our Galaxy is a natural barrier which constrains the studies of large-scale structures in the Universe, the peculiar motion of our Local Group of galaxies and other streaming motions (cosmic flows) which are important for understanding formation processes in the Early Universe and for cosmological models. Only in recent years have astronomers developed the techniques to peer through the disk and uncover the galaxy distribution in the Zone of Avoidance. I present the various observational multi-wavelength procedures (optical, far infrared, near infrared, radio and X-ray) that are currently being pursued to map the galaxy distribution behind our Milky Way. Particular emphasis is given to discoveries in the Great Attractor region -- a from streaming motions predicted huge overdensity centered behind the Galactic Plane. The recently unveiled massive rich cluster A3627 seems to constitute the previously unidentified core of the Great Attractor.
A blind HI survey using the Parkes telescope at |b|<5 deg, 300 deg < l < 332 deg has so far revealed 305 galaxies, most of which were previously unknown. These galaxies are used to map out the distribution of filaments and voids out to 10000 km/s. A preliminary measurement of the galaxy overdensity suggests only a moderate overdensity is present, and that the excess mass (above the background density) is ~2.10^{15}.Omega.M(sun). This is below the mass predicted in POTENT reconstructions of the local velocity field, and implies that the `Great Attractor (GA) is not as massive as these reconstructions indicate, or does not lie hidden in the region investigated.
We report on the discovery of two spiral galaxies located behind the southern Milky Way, within the least explored region of the Great Attractor. They lie at 317, -0.5 deg galactic, where obscuration from Milky Way stars and dust exceeds 13 to 15 mag of visual extinction. The galaxies were the most prominent of a set identified using mid-infrared images of the low-latitude (|b| < 1 deg) Spitzer Legacy program GLIMPSE. Follow-up HI radio observations reveal that both galaxies have redshifts that place them squarely in the Norma Wall of galaxies, which appears to extend diagonally across the Galactic Plane from Norma in the south to Centaurus & Vela in the north. We report on the near-infrared, mid-infrared and radio properties of these newly discovered galaxies, and discuss their context in the larger view of the Great Attractor. The work presented here demonstrates that mid-infrared surveys open up a new window to study galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance.
The nature and the extent of the Great Attractor has been the subject of much debate, not in the least due to the unfortunate position of its central part being behind the Milky Way. We here present the latest results from our deep optical galaxy search in the southern Milky Way. A full view of the southern hemisphere is emerging, revealing ACO 3627 as the most prominent concentration of galaxies in the southern sky. Our follow-up spectroscopic observations support the idea that ACO 3627 is the dominant component of a ``great wall-structure, similar to Coma in the (northern) Great Wall.