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The Laniakea Supercluster (/ ˌlɑːni.əˈkeɪ.ə /; Hawaiian for "open skies" or "immense heaven") [2] or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies. It was defined in September 2014, when a group of astronomers including R. Brent Tully of the University of Hawaiʻi, Hélène Courtois of the ...
Knowledge of the location of Earth has been shaped by 400 years of telescopic observations, and has expanded radically since the start of the 20th century. Initially, Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe, which consisted only of those planets visible with the naked eye and an outlying sphere of fixed stars. [1] After the acceptance of the heliocentric model in the 17th century ...
List of nearest galaxies. This is a list of known galaxies within 3.8 megaparsecs (12.4 million light-years) of the Solar System, in ascending order of heliocentric distance, or the distance to the Sun. This encompasses about 50 major Local Group galaxies, and some that are members of neighboring galaxy groups, the M81 Group and the Centaurus A ...
Astronomers have made the most detailed infrared map of our galaxy ever made. The huge map has already helped changed our view of the galaxy in unexpected ways, according to its creators.
Local Group. Local Group of galaxies, including the massive members Messier 31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and Milky Way, as well as other nearby galaxies. The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way, where Earth is located. It has a total diameter of roughly 3 megaparsecs (10 million light-years; 9 × 10 19 kilometres), [1] and a ...
The Milky Way[ c ] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
On November 4, 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way galaxy. [ 7 ][ 8 ] Eleven billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars. [ 9 ] The nearest such planet was then as close as 12 light-years away ...
Objects must orbit Earth within this radius, or they can become unbound by the gravitational perturbation of the Sun. [164] Earth, along with the Solar System, is situated in the Milky Way and orbits about 28,000 light-years from its center.