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our group of galaxies
The Local Group
At this scale, the Milky Way, Andromeda and around 80 small galaxies are just a single patch of light.
Key figures
- Galaxies
- over 80, most of them dwarf galaxies
- Largest
- Andromeda, Milky Way, Triangulum Galaxy
- Diameter
- about 10 million light-years
- Part of
- Virgo Supercluster, or Laniakea
Interesting facts
- Almost all galaxies in the universe are moving away from us – only the members of the Local Group are not; their gravity holds them together.
- New, very faint dwarf galaxies keep being discovered. There could be hundreds more.
Galaxies are close together
Compared with their size, galaxies lie surprisingly close together – which is why they often collide. Stars, on the other hand, are so far apart that they almost never hit one another when that happens.
Galaxies of the Local Group
| Galaxy | Distance | Diameter | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy | 70,000 light-years | 10,000 light-years | A small galaxy that is being torn apart and swallowed by the Milky Way right now – its stars already stretch around our galaxy in a long stream. |
| Large Magellanic Cloud | 160,000 light-years | 14,000 light-years | A companion galaxy of the Milky Way, visible only in the southern sky. Named after the navigator Magellan, whose crew described it in 1519. |
| Small Magellanic Cloud | 200,000 light-years | 7,000 light-years | The smaller sister of the Large Magellanic Cloud, likewise visible only from the southern hemisphere. |
| Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy | 290,000 light-years | 3,000 light-years | One of the first dwarf galaxies to be discovered (1937). |
| Fornax Dwarf Galaxy | 460,000 light-years | 3,000 light-years | A dwarf galaxy with globular clusters of its own. |
| Leo I | 820,000 light-years | 2,000 light-years | A tiny dwarf galaxy that lies right next to the bright star Regulus and is therefore hard to observe. |
| Barnard's Galaxy (NGC 6822) | 1.6 million light-years | 7,000 light-years | An irregular dwarf galaxy with many young stars and glowing clouds of gas. |
| IC 1613 | 2.4 million light-years | 10,000 light-years | A faint irregular dwarf galaxy. |
| M32 | 2.5 million light-years | 6,500 light-years | A small, compact companion galaxy of the Andromeda Galaxy. |
| Andromeda Galaxy (M31) | 2.5 million light-years | 220,000 light-years | The largest galaxy in the Local Group, with around a trillion stars. Visible to the naked eye as a blurry patch – the most distant object you can see without any aid. It is racing towards us at 110 km/s. Whether it will collide with the Milky Way is uncertain according to new measurements (2025): about 50:50 in the next 10 billion years. |
| M110 | 2.7 million light-years | 17,000 light-years | An elliptical dwarf galaxy that orbits the Andromeda Galaxy. |
| Triangulum Galaxy (M33) | 2.7 million light-years | 60,000 light-years | The third-largest galaxy in the Local Group, a loose spiral. Only just visible to the naked eye under a very dark sky. |
Where is it?
The Local Group belongs to the “The Local Group” level of the Cosmic Zoom (field of view about 10 million light-years). The Milky Way is not alone: together with the Andromeda Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy and around 80 small dwarf galaxies it forms the Local Group.
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