Which supercluster includes the Virgo Supercluster and the Milky Way?
Answer
Laniakea Supercluster
Answer
Laniakea Supercluster
The supercluster that includes the Virgo Supercluster and the Milky Way is the Laniakea Supercluster.
Laniakea was proposed in 2014 as a vast region of galaxy motions organized around the gravitational influence of the Great Attractor. The Milky Way belongs to the Local Group, the Local Group lies within the Virgo Supercluster, and the Virgo Supercluster is treated as one component of Laniakea in this large-scale mapping.
The name Laniakea is Hawaiian for “immense heaven” or “open skies.” The structure is estimated to contain roughly 100,000 nearby galaxies and to extend for about 500 million light-years, although its exact boundaries depend on how astronomers define a supercluster. It is identified primarily by galaxy-flow patterns rather than by a sharply bounded, gravitationally bound object.
That definition creates a common complication. Some later studies have questioned whether basin-of-attraction regions such as Laniakea should be called superclusters in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, Laniakea remains the standard answer to this trivia question. The Hercules, Coma, and Shapley superclusters are distinct large-scale structures, not the structure containing our Galaxy.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026