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Welcome To Laniakea, Our New Cosmic Home

Posted by samzenpus on from the where-the-cosmic-heart-is dept.

astroengine writes Using a new mapping technique that takes into account the motions — and not just the distances — of nearby galaxies, astronomers discovered that the Milky Way is located in the suburb of a massive, previously unknown super-cluster they named Laniakea, a term from Hawaiian words meaning "immeasurable heaven." Actually, Laniakea's girth is measurable, though difficult to conceptualize. The super-cluster spans 520 million light-years in diameter, more than five times larger than the cluster previously believed to be the Milky Way's cosmic home.

42 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. A body in motion etc. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So I get the idea of the new grouping. Some things we used to consider our neighbors, we're actually just flying past and have no long term connection to.

    I get why that's useful. But I don't get why it'd replace our existing grouping. For a human lifespan, that grouping is all but permanent.

    1. Re:A body in motion etc. by kruach+aum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It replaces the new grouping in much the same way Einstein replaced Newtonian mechanics. It is a more accurate description of our place in the universe, just as relativity is a more accurate description of moving bodies, even if on human scales the two are nearly indistinguishable.

    2. Re:A body in motion etc. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      If we were only thinking in terms of human lifespans, most science would be irrelevant. Geology and climatology? That stuff hardly changes in a human lifetime! Astronomy? Why bother with anything beyond Pluto?

      Thinking within a human lifespan is very short sighted for anything but what you want to achieve before you die. You could even argue that the grouping is practically permanent for the lifespan of our species, but that grouping would still be technically wrong compared to our best knowledge.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    3. Re:A body in motion etc. by OakDragon · · Score: 1

      It replaces the new grouping in much the same way Einstein replaced Newtonian mechanics.

      No it does not and that analogy is complete bullshit.

      Don't waste your precious analogies on Slashdot; they'll only be torn to pieces.

      --
      Dark Reflection
    4. Re:A body in motion etc. by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

      Please don't mistake your inability to comprehend the basis of comparison in an analogy for a mistake in the analogy, TIA

    5. Re:A body in motion etc. by kruach+aum · · Score: 2

      Einstein didn't replace Newtonian mechanics? Tell that to the astronomers who conceived of Vulcan to explain Mercury's orbit.

    6. Re:A body in motion etc. by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      For non-relativistic calculations, Newtonian mechanics remain a useful set of formulas. Relativity didn't replace Newtonian mechanics so much as subsume it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:A body in motion etc. by Artifakt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Analogies are never exact correspondences. They're simply more or less useful. People who replace 'useful' with 'accurate' in that sentence are like a clown car full of lawyers in a fruit flavored hailstorm.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    8. Re:A body in motion etc. by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Don't waste your precious analogies on Slashdot; they'll only be torn to pieces.

      Unless they're car analogies. Then they'll be driven into the ground.
      Allow me: this new super cluster discovery is like finding out your car isn't just driving up the ramp of a semi trailer, but that the semi-trailer is on the deck of an air-craft carrier.

    9. Re:A body in motion etc. by MindlessGenius · · Score: 1

      Based on these recent discoveries it would appear the old copernican relative heliocentric perception of time needs some serious adjustments, since degree based graduations are now degraded to sub galactic time with the new super galactic model...

      I wonder what time it really is based on this time scale.
      Anyone has any idea?

  2. 'Musican by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    If it is that fat it must be an American super cluster.

    1. Re:'Musican by RenderSeven · · Score: 2

      You want Dark Matter with that for a dollar more?

    2. Re: 'Musican by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Protip n00b: a post can only get so many mods of a specific type. Funny limit got hit, so people chose insightful, when they should have chosen underrated.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. There goes the neighborhood. by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Universe was such a nice place before all this suburban sprawl took over. Stupid commuters.

  4. Just 520M LY? by rsborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hell, that's less than 160 MegaParsecs. Not that much bigger than the already-cramped Virgo Supercluster at 33MPa. Still the name is quite nice.

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    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  5. LOL ... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, Laniakea's girth is measurable, though difficult to conceptualize

    Your momma so fat ...

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  6. Great by DarkOx · · Score: 1

    Just what we needed another taxing authority.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:Great by PPH · · Score: 2

      Just through the door marked 'Beware of the Leopard'.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    2. Re:Great by nytes · · Score: 2

      Not only that. Now I have to have all my address labels reprinted!

      --
      -- I have monkeys in my pants.
    3. Re:Great by Hussman32 · · Score: 1

      I'm curious why you want to repeal the popular election of senators?

      --
      "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
  7. Not that massive by gmuslera · · Score: 2

    1 cubic light year of water should weight thousands of times more than it, at least if there is enough oxigen in the universe to make that cube.

  8. Al Gore warned about it. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    You know, if you keep building more and more high ways the cities will sprawl uncontrollably. Al Gore warned us about it back in 2000. (If he had not, he would have, I mean at least it is the sort of thing he would have warned about). Now we have sprawled to some 500 million light year diameter. When you face that impossibly long commute, remember that prophetic sage.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Al Gore warned about it. by flappinbooger · · Score: 1

      You know, if you keep building more and more high ways the cities will sprawl uncontrollably. Al Gore warned us about it back in 2000. (If he had not, he would have, I mean at least it is the sort of thing he would have warned about). Now we have sprawled to some 500 million light year diameter. When you face that impossibly long commute, remember that prophetic sage.

      Al Gore is not a prophet

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
  9. If a tree falls in a wood by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

    What was I about to say? Oh - yes. And all this vast space with dark matter and dark energy and galaxies and gas and stars and planets. And if there's nothing intelligible there, nothing intelligent, no thought whatsoever. Just physical world, nohingness filled with the quiet and sometimnes not so quiet clockwork of time and physics and particles. Then us, we, here -- do we even exist?

  10. It seems to make sense to me . . . by mmell · · Score: 2

    . . . the further we're able to look, the larger the structures we'll be able to perceive.

  11. Not surprising by Stardner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We've gone from a geocentric model to being part of a galactic super-cluster. It seems to me that our reality is fractal in nature; and it wouldn't surprise me if at every step we find our reality to be a cell of a much larger one.

    1. Re:Not surprising by boristhespider · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're not the only one to start thinking along these lines. You might be interested in this somewhat random and unrepresentative set of papers:

      http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/...
      http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4280
      http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.0552
      http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.4688
      http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5554

      I know very little about this area myself but it seems relatively settled that the fractal dimension of the universe - if such can be defined and has a meaningful interpretation - is between 2.5 and 3.

    2. Re:Not surprising by boristhespider · · Score: 1

      Thankfully for our aching heads, unless our understanding of the laws of physics is very wrong, probably not. The structure of the universe being fractal in nature doesn't imply that *everything* in reality is fractal -- it implies that gravity will tend to construct fractal structures, when dealing with objects in a large enough number. Down at our level, there's too much competition with other forces, primarily electromagnetic although on some Solar and planetary scale objects such as neutron stars the forces are a bit more exotic in nature, to be purely governed by gravity and so a different framework takes shape. A fundamental interconnectedness of everything is a nice idea, but it would make my head hurt, and isn't justified by our current understanding of physics. (Which, of course, may change - and which also in itself doesn't rule out there being at least some level of self-similarity between systems dominated by electromagnetic forces and systems dominated by gravitational forces, given the similarity in their behaviour.)

  12. Misplaced? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can't click-open the article. Imagine if we slashdotted an entire Beowulf cluster of galaxies.

    Seriously, though, how could we have missed that many nearby galaxies for so long? Did we not see them, underestimate their size, miscalculate their location or direction due to dust being in the way?

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  13. What The Hell Is Wrong With You People? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A better analogy would be from switching from carburetors to fuel injection.

    This is Slashdot. Car analogies, people. Car analogies.

    1. Re:What The Hell Is Wrong With You People? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      I realize you are an AC troll and this is way off topic. But it's apparent you don't know a damn thing about carburetors.

      Obviously fuel injection is fantastic, and you'd only choose a carb over FI for specific reasons. But it's like comparing an HP scientific calculator to a Babbage engine. One is a very functional and practical solution using modern technology. The other is amazing tech from the past and frankly a mechanical marvel.

      FI is going to look pretty silly when we're all driving around with Mr. Fusion powering our cars.

  14. That's very large... by osu-neko · · Score: 1

    One wonders how long it will be until it's entirely represented in Elite: Dangerous. :)

    --
    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  15. kinda puts it into perspective by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    ..we go from 520 million light years in our local group to what? 46 billion light years of known universe, shy of 28 billion light years observable? If this new label represents a neighbourhood, then the universe is what, a small town?

    Where's the difficulty in conceptualising?

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    1. Re:kinda puts it into perspective by vladisglad · · Score: 1

      If the small town has about 100 neighborhoods. If the universe is 10x10 street blocks then this is like finding the street you live on?

    2. Re:kinda puts it into perspective by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      I grew up on a housing estate, I went to a school where I knew the names of every one of the other 740 students there and all 44 teachers. I knew where most of them lived as well - every one of them within two miles of my home. That four square miles was way more than a hundred square blocks (though you couldn't really refer to unplanned urban sprawl as being anything like "block"-y, it is certainly more than ten vehicle streets to a side).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:kinda puts it into perspective by vladisglad · · Score: 1

      Either way how you scale this still seems like it's finding our place is a now much smaller universe. This is going to be some of the last stuff that's observable to us.

  16. Re:LOL ... by Khyber · · Score: 1

    It's sad that this is probably one of the last places this kind of joke can be made, since Fark took the shit plunge.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  17. Cool Tech by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    Fuel injection will never look as cool as two high CFM Holley four barrel carbs sitting above an engine, in series with a blower plenum. Or six two-barrels. Never. :)

    Just the same way my state of the art Marantz home theater will never look as cool as my late 1970's 2325 Marantz receiver.

    A particular technology may be peak, performance wise; but that's no indicator it's the peak aesthetically as well.

    Clipper ships / modern freighters. Another good example. Beauties and the beasts.

    etc.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Cool Tech by Cragen · · Score: 1

      Indeed. In 1984, I bought a complete Pioneer stereo system (FM Receiver, 200W Amp [0.02% THD - woot!], Cassette Tape (i repeat, Tape) Deck, 2 Speakers (a yard-high each), all total for about $2000) and was bummed that I didn't have enough money for a Reel-to-Reel unit. The whole thing (along with my record and tape collection) took up most of one wall in our living room. In 1985, the whole thing could be had for about $500 in something the size of a car radio, with BETTER SOUND. Egads. But I still remember that wall of stereo stuff quite fondly.

  18. Thought someone moved in to my old hood by deadweight · · Score: 1

    Laniakea is also a place in Oahu I used to live, so my first thought is why does anyone care who moves to a little town on an island.

  19. Land of Ikea? by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    just saying..

  20. We don't know anything by Jonifico · · Score: 1

    It's crazy how lost we can be in the universe. I mean, we might get a new home in the immensity anytime soon.