The authors of the article published in Nature Astronomy in January 2017 argue that the distance velocity measurements of the Dipole Repeller are incompatible with an explanation based solely on an attractive gravitational force[failed verification].

It’s a story of love and hate, attraction and repulsion,[7]Hoffman also told Wired: In addition to being pulled towards the known Shapley Concentration, we are also being pushed away from the newly discovered Dipole Repeller.

[9]The CNRS shared the same position and stated in a press release:[10] Over the years, the debate has bogged down on the relative importance of these two attractors, as they are not enough to explain our movement, especially since it does not point exactly in the direction of Shapley as it should.[...]

The team thus discovered that at the location of our galaxy the repulsive and attractive forces from distant entities are of comparable importance and deduced that the major influences that are at the origin of our movement are the Shapley attractor and a vast region of void (i. e. without visible and invisible matter), previously unidentified, that they named the Dipole Repeller.

[13] Nevertheless, the discovery of the Dipole Repeller was commented on by astrophysicists and journalists in the mainstream media without using repulsive force [clarification needed].