Laniakea, Our Home Supercluster, Is Already Being Torn Apart

The above visualization of the Laniakea supercluster, which represents a collection of more than 100,000 estimated galaxies spanning a volume of over 100 million light-years, shows the distribution of dark matter (shadowy purple) and individual galaxies (bright orange/yellow) together. Credit: Tsaghkyan/Wikimedia Commons

If you look at the cosmic web, on the largest scales of all, galaxy groups and clusters gather together in even larger structures: superclusters.

Despite the relatively recent identification of Laniakea as the supercluster which contains the Milky Way and much more, it’s not a gravitationally bound structure and will not hold together as the Universe continues to expand. A large amount of the normal matter in the Universe can be found between the galaxies: in the intergalactic medium.

The Milky Way is part of the Local Group, on the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster, which is part of an even larger structure known as the local supercluster: Laniakea.

Unfortunately, Laniakea, like all superclusters in the Universe, is only a phantasmal, apparent structure. In time, dark energy will tear it apart completely.

(Source: Big Think)