hierarchical Universe

hierarchical Universe

A cosmological model, originally due to Charlier in 1908, in which inhomogeneities exist on increasingly larger scales: galaxies occur in clusters (as observed), which in turn are clustered into superclusters (as observed), which may in turn aggregate as clusters of superclusters, and so on. As the level of clustering increases then the mean density of matter must decrease in the progressively larger volumes considered.