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The local group

From Encyc
The several dozen galaxies in this diagram, known as the local group represent all the galaxies close enough to the Milky Way that gravitational attraction draws them together.[1] All the rest of the Universe is receding from us. Andromeda, the other large galaxy in this diagram, may collide with the Milky Way, in about ten billion years.

In Astronomy the term the local group refers to the several dozen galaxies closest to The Milky Way, our own galaxy.[1]

The large Magellanic Cloud and the small Magellanic Cloud only visible from the Southern Hemisphere are prominent nearby galaxies. The Andromeda galaxy, is the other large spiral galaxy in the local group.[1] All the other galaxies in the local group are smaller than Andromeda and the Milky Way.

All the galaxies farther from us than those in the local group, are receding from us, due to "The Big Bang".[1]

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Apocalypse When? Hubble Casts Doubt on Certainty of Galactic Collision". NASA Science. 2025-06-02. Archived from the original on 2025-06-02. Retrieved 2026-07-14. But now a new study using data from Hubble and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space telescope says “not so fast.” Researchers combining observations from the two space observatories re-examined the long-held prediction of a Milky Way – Andromeda collision, and found it is far less inevitable than astronomers had previously suspected.
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