Cosmic structures · Our home supercluster
Laniakea Supercluster
Contains the Milky Way · Light crosses it in 530 million years
- Across
- 520.0 million light-years
- Vs Earth
- 5,200× Milky Way
- Mass
- 100.0 quadrillion Suns
Open Laniakea Supercluster in Cosmic Scale
In the app, Laniakea Supercluster is part of the Beyond pack.
About
Laniakea was defined in 2014 by mapping how galaxies move rather than where they sit: every galaxy whose flow converges on the same point belongs to it. About 100,000 galaxies stream toward a region called the Great Attractor.
Its name is Hawaiian for "immeasurable heaven"; about 100,000 galaxies flow toward its centre.
At a glance
| Diameter | About 520 million light-years |
|---|---|
| Galaxies | About 100,000 |
| Mass | 100 quadrillion Suns |
| Defined | 2014 |
Did you know
- The name is Hawaiian for 'immeasurable heaven'.
- It is not gravitationally bound: cosmic expansion will eventually pull it apart.
- The Great Attractor lies behind the plane of the Milky Way, which is why it took so long to notice.
Simulations
- The Big Bang — How the universe grew from a hot, dense beginning into a web of galaxies, over 13.8 billion years