Laura Danly was an author who wrote the book The Cosmos A to Z, which listed the Arachnid Nebula as having a diameter of 6.5 billion kilometers.
When the starship Enterprise NX-01 completed a survey of the same nebula in 2151, they found that it actually had a diameter of 8 billion kilometers. (ENT: "Fusion")
Danly's name might be a homage to the real astronomer working at Griffith Observatory, though the inclusion of the Terra Nova expedition (2078) in her book makes it doubtful that it was really her that wrote the book.