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Distance Information The closest known galaxy to us is the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, at 236,000,000,000,000,000 km (25,000 light years) from the Sun. The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy is the next closest , at 662,000,000,000,000,000 km (70,000 light years) from the Sun.
What are the closest galaxies to the Milky Way?
Although several dozen minor galaxies lie closer to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to ours. Excluding the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, visible from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, the Andromeda galaxy is the brightest external galaxy you can see.
What are the 3 closest galaxies?
Astronomers classify galaxies into three major categories: elliptical, spiral and irregular. These galaxies span a wide range of sizes, from dwarf galaxies containing as few as 100 million stars to giant galaxies with more than a trillion stars.
What are the 10 closest galaxies to Earth?
The nearest galaxies (ranked) Andromeda III – 2,363,500 ly (satellite of Andromeda) LGS 3 – 2,477,500 ly (satellite of Triangulum) IC 1613 – 2,494,000 ly. Triangulum galaxy (M33) – 2,592,000 ly. Aquarius dwarf – 2,608,000 ly. Tucana dwarf – 2,836,000 ly. Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) – 3,064,500 ly.
What is the second closest galaxy?
Bottom line: The Triangulum galaxy is the second-closest large spiral galaxy at 2.7 million light-years away. It’s turned face-on to us and so appears faint in our sky.
How old is our galaxy?
Most galaxies are between 10 billion and 13.6 billion years old. Our universe is about 13.8 billion years old, so most galaxies formed when the universe was quite young! Astronomers believe that our own Milky Way galaxy is approximately 13.6 billion years old.
Can we travel to another galaxy?
The technology required to travel between galaxies is far beyond humanity’s present capabilities, and currently only the subject of speculation, hypothesis, and science fiction. However, theoretically speaking, there is nothing to conclusively indicate that intergalactic travel is impossible.
What will happen if 2 galaxies collide?
When you’re wondering what happens when two galaxies collide, try not to think of objects smashing into each other or violent crashes. Instead, as galaxies collide, new stars are formed as gasses combine, both galaxies lose their shape, and the two galaxies create a new supergalaxy that is elliptical.
Which galaxy is the most beautiful?
The most beautiful galaxies are called spirals. The Milky Way is a spiral, and so is the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Spirals are flat disks of stars with bright bulges in their centers. Spiral arms wrap around these bulges.
What is considered the most beautiful galaxy?
NGC 2336 is the quintessential galaxy — big, beautiful, and blue — and it is captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
What is the galaxy we live in?
We live in one of the arms of a large spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. The Sun and its planets (including Earth) lie in this quiet part of the galaxy, about half way out from the centre. 100 000 years to cross from one side to the other.
How far away is closest star?
Alpha Centauri: Closest Star to Earth. The closest star to Earth are three stars in the Alpha Centauri system. The two main stars are Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, which form a binary pair. They are an average of 4.3 light-years from Earth.
What is the largest galaxy in the universe?
Largest galaxy: IC 1101 Our Milky Way galaxy is around 100,000 light-years across, but that’s fairly average for a spiral galaxy. In comparison, the largest known galaxy, called IC 1101, is 50 times larger and about 2,000 times more massive than our galactic home.
How many galaxies are in space?
Several thousand galaxies, each consisting of billions of stars, are in this small view. XDF (2012) view: Each light speck is a galaxy, some of which are as old as 13.2 billion years – the observable universe is estimated to contain 200 billion to two trillion galaxies.
What galaxies can we see with your naked eyes?
The Andromeda Galaxy is the only other (besides the Milky Way) spiral galaxy we can see with the naked eye.
How many galaxies are named?
All in all, Hubble reveals an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe or so, but this number is likely to increase to about 200 billion as telescope technology in space improves, Livio told Space.com.
What’s the oldest planet?
PSR B12620-26 b The exoplanet known as PSR B12620-26 b is the oldest known planet in the universe, with an estimated age of about 13 billion years.
What is the oldest thing in the universe?
Astronomers have found the farthest known source of radio emissions in the universe: a galaxy-swallowing supermassive black hole.
Which is the oldest star?
Methuselah Star Name Age (in billions of years) Distance HD 140283 or the Methuselah Star 13.7 ± 0.7 200 ly 2MASS J18082002-5104378 B 13.53 1950 ly BD +17° 3248 13.8 ± 4 968 ly SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 13.6 6000 ly.
Is it possible to travel faster than light?
Physicists’ current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. General Relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
Will humans ever leave the galaxy?
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a disk of stars about 100,000 light-years across, and about 1,000 light-years thick. So, to leave our Galaxy, we would have to travel about 500 light-years vertically, or about 25,000 light-years away from the galactic centre.
Will the Universe end?
Astronomers once thought the universe could collapse in a Big Crunch. Now most agree it will end with a Big Freeze. Trillions of years in the future, long after Earth is destroyed, the universe will drift apart until galaxy and star formation ceases. Slowly, stars will fizzle out, turning night skies black.
