Laniakea: Our home supercluster

Scioence Journal Nature features the research of R. Brent Tully et al, which defines a supercluster called Laniakea.

Superclusters – regions of space that are densely packed with galaxies – are the biggest structures in the Universe. But scientists have struggled to define exactly where one supercluster ends and another begins. Now, a team based in Hawaii has come up with a new technique that maps the Universe according to the flow of galaxies across space. Redrawing the boundaries of the cosmic map, they redefine our home supercluster and name it Laniakea, which means ‘immeasurable heaven’ in Hawaiian.

Read the research paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13674

[via flowingdata]