Key facts
- Category
- Galaxy superclusters
- Object class
- Galaxy supercluster
- Scale fact
- 500 million lyextent
- Composition
- ~100,000 galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, hot intergalactic gas, dark matter
Laniakea Supercluster
500 million lyextent
Details
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.
Laniakea was defined by reconstructing the peculiar velocities of nearby galaxies and grouping the flows that converge toward the same gravitational basin. It includes the Local Group, Virgo Cluster and the region known as the Great Attractor.
Its roughly 500-million-light-year extent is a boundary produced by that flow model, not a visible shell or a single gravitationally bound object. Other mapping methods can divide the same cosmic web differently.
Links
- Universe journey
- Laniakea
- Wikipedia
- Laniakea Supercluster on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Laniakea Supercluster on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Laniakea Supercluster falls between Virgo Supercluster and BOSS Great Wall. The band uses nearby Galaxy supercluster records.
Shared physical scale
382million ly
Sources
References for Laniakea Supercluster
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Laniakea Supercluster — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Based on work by Andrew Z. Colvin, CC BY-SA 4.0)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.