<p>The Laniakea Supercluster contains several galaxy filaments, even just reading the wikipedia articles you provided you can see the difference in size of the two:</p>

<p>Galaxy Filament</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>They are massive, thread-like formations, with a typical length of 50 to 80 megaparsecs, (163 to 261 million light years) that form the boundaries between large voids in the universe.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Laniakea Supercluster</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The Laniakea Supercluster encompasses 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 160 megaparsecs (520 million light-years).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The reason why Laniakea isn't the largest "structure" in the universe is because it inst a single object, rather an arbitrarily assigned group of galaxies. From this image below you can see how the supercluster is given an imaginary edge based on the peculiar velocities of the galaxies within it, there is no observable edge to the supercluster, unlike galaxy filaments that have visible edges.
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/j5SJG.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/j5SJG.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-02-05T14:38:34.063Z
2016-02-05T14:38:34.063Z
Dean
<p>It was discovered recently that the Milky Way galaxy lies inside a supercluster named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laniakea_Supercluster" rel="nofollow">Laniakea Supercluster</a>. On the other hand, wikipedia says that galaxy filaments are "the largest known structures in the universe"
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_filament" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_filament</a></p>

<p>My question is: is the Laniakea Supercluster part of a galaxy filament, and if so, what's the name of the galaxy filament?</p>

<milky-way><galaxy-cluster>
Is our supercluster part of a galaxy filament?
set5
# Is our supercluster part of a galaxy filament?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-02-05)

It was discovered recently that the Milky Way galaxy lies inside a supercluster named [Laniakea Supercluster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laniakea_Supercluster). On the other hand, wikipedia says that galaxy filaments are "the largest known structures in the universe"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_filament>

My question is: is the Laniakea Supercluster part of a galaxy filament, and if so, what's the name of the galaxy filament?

**Tags:** milky-way, galaxy-cluster


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2016-02-05. Score: 3

The Laniakea Supercluster contains several galaxy filaments, even just reading the wikipedia articles you provided you can see the difference in size of the two:

Galaxy Filament

> They are massive, thread-like formations, with a typical length of 50 to 80 megaparsecs, (163 to 261 million light years) that form the boundaries between large voids in the universe.

Laniakea Supercluster

> The Laniakea Supercluster encompasses 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 160 megaparsecs (520 million light-years).

The reason why Laniakea isn't the largest "structure" in the universe is because it inst a single object, rather an arbitrarily assigned group of galaxies. From this image below you can see how the supercluster is given an imaginary edge based on the peculiar velocities of the galaxies within it, there is no observable edge to the supercluster, unlike galaxy filaments that have visible edges.
[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/j5SJG.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/j5SJG.jpg)


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