Laniakea

[ luh-nahy-uh-kee-uh ]

noun

, Astronomy.

1. a huge supercluster of many thousands of galaxies: the Milky Way is included in one of its three component parts.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Laniakea¹

2014; Hawaiian: immeasurable (or immense) heaven

Example Sentences

In 2014 they co-discovered the Laniakea Supercluster, a collection of around 100,000 nearby galaxies, including the Milky Way, that stretches over half a billion light-years.

From Scientific American

When he claims to have “heard the planets singing, singing as they spun, vaguely Hawaiian,” is he making reference to the Laniakea Supercluster, the galaxy supercluster in which we live, named after the Hawaiian word for “immense heaven”?

From Washington Post

From the invention of the first telescope in 1608 to the discovery of the Milky Way galaxy’s place in Laniakea—a great river of galaxies streaming toward a giant hidden gravity source—our exploration of the universe so far follows a trend: we explore with instruments and with our imaginations.

From Scientific American

In 2014, Dr. Tully suggested that these features were all connected, as part of a giant conglomeration he called Laniakea — Hawaiian for “open skies” or “immense heaven.”

From New York Times

“We now see the Great Attractor as the downtown region of the supercluster that we live in — an overall entity that our team has called the Laniakea Supercluster,” Dr. Tully said.

From New York Times