For the first time, scientists have pinpointed where our galaxy stands amongst thousands of other galaxies in our home supercluster. The new map shows beautiful feathery strings linked together with the Milky Way galaxy placed on the edge of the newly named Laniakea supercluster, home to 100,000 other galaxies.
We’ve seen the Milky Way in superclusters before, but not like this. The map of Laniakea, which means ‘immeasurable heaven’ in Hawaiian, shows which galaxies are being pulled by the same gravitational force thus revealing the galaxies that are tied to one another versus the galaxies that are just nearby one another.
The scientists from Hawaii were able to determine the strings of galaxies by measuring the cosmic flow of galaxies by subtracting cosmic expansion to see the gravitational pull of galaxies. Figuring out the pull allowed them to paint the strings.
You can read more about this new discovery in Nature and by watching the fascinating video below.