Scientists remap supercluster that contains the Milky Way

Laniakea Supercluster

Upon mapping 8000 galaxies, scientists discover the shape of the supercluster that the Milky belongs in.

There are likely more grains of sand on Earth than there are stars in the known universe. Because of gravity, these stars clump together into galaxies which are star cities comprising of hundreds of billion stars. Our Milky Way has around 1-4 billion stars including our sun. Further, there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

It turns out that galaxies are also clumped together into larger structures called clusters with the Milky Way being part of the ‘Local Group’ cluster. Our cluster in turn is part of a supercluster or group of clusters. Now, scientists in Hawaii have mapped our supercluster and discovered its approximate shape. Named ‘Laniakea Supercluster’ otherwise known as the ‘Local Supercluster’ it was discovered using a new way of defining superclusters by looking at relative velocities of galaxies. This discovery places the previous ‘Virgo Supercluster’ as a mere appendage to the Laniakea Supercluster and also embraces the previously assumed Pavo-Indus Supercluster.

Our supercluster now contains around 100,000 galaxies over a distance of 520 million light-years. Its approximate mass is about a hundred thousand times that of our galaxy. At the center of our supercluster is a central gravitational point called the ‘Great Attractor’. The galaxies that move toward the Great Attractor are what define our supercluster.

Nearby superclusters to ours include: Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster, Perseus-Pisces Supercluster, and the Shapley Supercluster. Some distant superclusters include: the Aquarius Supercluster, Corona Borealis Supercluster, and Virgo-Coma Supercluster.