A rendering of the three-dimensional envelope delineating the basin of attraction inside which our galaxy the Milky Way is located. The envelope is rendered with a semi-transparent blueish surface inside which are displayed thousands of very thin flowlines rendered in gold color, that are seen converging onto a unique attractor. A particular spot in the periphery of this object is pinpointed with a label that reads "WE ARE HERE". The scene is rendered against a colorful background image of a numerical simulation of the cosmic web, made of filaments, voids and knots, typical of the distribution of matter on cosmological scales. This visualization is entitled "The Laniakea Supercluster" and a text reads "Among the largest known structures in the Universe, superclusters are large groups of smaller galaxy clusters. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is part of the Local Group, which itself is part of the Virgo Supercluster, which in turn belongs to the Laniakea Supercluster. The Laniakea Supercluster extends more than 500 million light-years and contains the mass of hundred million billion stars, grouped in over 100,000 large galaxies."
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/504/381/077/702/868/original/2caca30fe46439c0.jpg