Cosmic Scale
Laniakea Supercluster
Our home supercluster · Contains the Milky Way
How big is Laniakea Supercluster?
Laniakea Supercluster is about 520 million light-years across.
See Laniakea Supercluster in 3D, at true scale
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.
At a glance
| Diameter | 520 million light-years |
|---|---|
| Mass | 1.99 × 10⁴⁷ kg |
| Diameter compared with Earth | 3.9 × 10¹⁷ × Earth |
| Galaxies | About 100,000 |
| Defined | 2014 |
Good to 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.
- Next smaller: Boötes Void · 400 million light-years
- Next larger: Sloan Great Wall · 1.4 billion light-years