Along with about 30 other galaxies, the Milky_Way is a part of the Local Group. These galaxies are held together by gravitational_forces. The Milky Way is the second largest galaxy in this group. The Andromeda nebula is even more impressive.
To recognize its characteristic shape, all that is needed is a good pair of binoculars. The galaxy lies approx. 2.2 million light-years away from us. Elliptical galaxies, such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are nearer to the Milky Way. Because they each consist of less than one billion stars, they are considered small or dwarf galaxies and appear as faint hazes to the naked eye.
The next nearest galactic cluster, Virgo, contains thousands of galaxies of different types. They are all moving in the same direction. A huge galactic cluster that is hidden from our view by our own galaxy is thought to be the cause for this motion. Another galactic cluster is the Coma cluster in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It contains about 1000 galaxies as well as sources of X-ray and radio wave radiation.
Among the most distant galaxies known to us are the dim, blue objects barely visible at the outer edge of the known universe. It requires a telescope and computer processor to discern them at all. The galactic belt of the Great Wall, discovered in 1989 in the northern sky extends over half a billion light-years. It contains tens of thousands of galaxies aligned in rows. A corresponding and similar galactic cluster, the Great Attractor, was discovered in the southern sky in 1996.
