BOSS Great Wall

Laniakea is the immense supercluster region that includes the Local Group, the Virgo Cluster, and the Great Attractor. Its boundaries are defined less by a sharp visible edge than by the way galaxies flow through space, like matter draining into the same cosmic basin.

Object class

Galaxy supercluster

Composition

~100,000 galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, hot intergalactic gas, dark matter

The Virgo Supercluster is the larger galactic neighborhood that contains the Virgo Cluster, the Local Group, and many other nearby galaxy groups and clusters. It was long used as the standard name for our home supercluster-scale environment before larger flow-based structures such as Laniakea became common in cosmography.

Object class

Galaxy supercluster

Composition

At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters, galaxies, hot intergalactic gas, dark matter

The Coma Cluster is one of the richest and most famous galaxy clusters in the nearby universe. Its galaxies move as if embedded in far more mass than we can see directly, making Coma one of the classic systems that helped reveal the existence of dark matter.

Object class

Galaxy cluster

Host

Coma Supercluster

Composition

~1,000 galaxies, hot intracluster gas, dark matter