Which is the nearest major galaxy to our own?

The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) from the Earth and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. Its name stems from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda. Andromeda Galaxy was formed roughly 10 billion years ago from the collision and subsequent merger of smaller protogalaxies (clouds of gas).

It is one of a few galaxies that can be seen unaided from the Earth. In approximately 4.5 billion years the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are expected to collide, and the result will be a giant elliptical galaxy. Andromeda is accompanied by 14 dwarf galaxies.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

Test your knowledge

What are your thoughts on this subject?

36 Comments

William Laughlin

I was looking for the Samsung Galaxy!

stormejohn

Johnny Rock, The Comet Galaxy, a spiral galaxy located 3.2 billion light-years from Earth, in the galaxy cluster Abell 2667, was found with the Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy has slightly more mass than our Milky Way. It was detected on 2 March 2007.The Cartwheel Galaxy (also known as ESO 350-40 or PGC 2248) is a lenticular galaxy and ring galaxy about 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. It is an estimated 150,000 light-years diameter, and has a mass of about 2.9–4.8 × 10 9 solar masses; its outer ring has a circular velocity of 217 km/s.The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky.