“Superclusters – regions of space that are densely packed with galaxies – are the biggest structures in the Universe. But scientists have struggled to define exactly where one supercluster ends and another begins. Now, a team based in Hawaii has come up with a new technique that maps the Universe according to the flow of galaxies across space. Redrawing the boundaries of the cosmic map, they redefine our home supercluster and name it Laniakea, which means ‘immeasurable heaven’ in Hawaiian.  Read the research paper here.”

Source: www.youtube.com

Spatial thinking and geographic exploration is constantly seeking to understand place in context to other places.  More often than not, that is done without every venturing beyond this planet, but in many respects, space is the greatest of contexts on the grandest of scales for us to understand ourselves.  I first saw this video embedded in an NPR article and it filled me with wonder to think about the immensities of space and that the Earth is such a small little corner of the universe. 

Tags: space, scale, perspective.