Explore Laniakea: The Supercluster Earth is in

[Astronuc]

There are various threads on galactic Superclusters, but non apparently mention Laniakea.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/super-clusters.13239/#post-136226
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...s-super-cluster-evidence.382111/#post-2605319



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laniakea_Superclusterhttp://www.nature.com/news/earth-s-new-address-solar-system-milky-way-laniakea-1.15819

A new study, published in Nature, describes a novel way to define where one supercluster ends and another begins. A team led by Brent Tully, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, charted the motions of galaxies to infer the gravitational landscape of the local Universe, and redraw its map.

The team used a database that compiles the velocities of 8,000 galaxies, calculated after subtracting the average rate of cosmic expansion. . . . .

The matter of the nature of a supercluster is still to be resolved.

This is a completely new definition of a supercluster. Scientists previously placed the Milky Way in the Virgo Supercluster, but under Tully and colleagues' definition, this region becomes just an appendage of the much larger Laniakea, which is 160 million parsecs (520 million light years) across and contains the mass of 100 million billion Suns.

 

[phinds]

VERY cool. Thanks for posting