The name was suggested by Nawaʻa Napoleon, an associate professor of Hawaiian language at Kapiolani Community College.

[12] The Laniakea Supercluster encompasses approximately 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 160 Mpc (520 million ly).

The real number may be much larger because some of these are traversing the Zone of Avoidance, an area of the sky that is partially obscured by gas and dust from the Milky Way galaxy, making them essentially undetectable.

Unlike its constituent clusters, Laniakea is not gravitationally bound and is projected to be torn apart by dark energy.

For example, South African astronomer Tony Fairall stated in 1988 that redshifts suggested that the Virgo and Hydra–Centaurus superclusters may be connected.