The Milky Way has several smaller galaxies gravitationally bound to it, as part of the Milky Way subgroup, which is part of the local galaxy cluster, the Local Group.[1]
There are 61 small galaxies confirmed to be within 420 kiloparsecs (1.4 million light-years) of the Milky Way,[2] but not all of them are necessarily in orbit, and some may themselves be in orbit of other satellite galaxies. The only ones visible to the naked eye are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which have been observed since prehistory. Measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 suggest the Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be orbiting the Milky Way.[3] Of the galaxies confirmed to be in orbit, the largest is the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, which has a diameter of 2.6 kiloparsecs (8,500 ly)[4] or roughly a twentieth that of the Milky Way.
^David G. Turner (15 August 2013). "An Eclectic View of our Milky Way Galaxy". Canadian Journal of Physics. 92 (9) (published September 2013): 959–963. arXiv:1310.0014. Bibcode:2014CaJPh..92..959T. doi:10.1139/cjp-2013-0429. S2CID 118390693.
^Cite error: The named reference satellitecensus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Press release: Magellanic Clouds May Be Just Passing Through". Harvard University. January 9, 2007.
^Karachentsev, I. D.; Karachentseva, V. E.; Hutchmeier, W. K.; Makarov, D. I. (2004). "A Catalog of Neighboring Galaxies". The Astronomical Journal. 127 (4): 2031–2068. Bibcode:2004AJ....127.2031K. doi:10.1086/382905.
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discovered, and galaxies located behind the central plane oftheMilkyWay are extremely difficult to discern. It is possible for any galaxy to mask another...
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theMilkyWay and contains over 30 billion stars, is sometimes classified as a dwarf galaxy; others consider it a full-fledged galaxy. Dwarf galaxies'...
elliptical loop-shaped satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWay. It contains four globular clusters in its main body, with the brightest of them—NGC 6715 (M54)—being...
feature at the centres ofgalaxies. Galaxies are categorized according to their visual morphology as elliptical, spiral, or irregular. TheMilkyWay is an...
and Draco, the known dwarf spheroidal galaxies with the lowest luminosities, have mass-to-light ratios (M/L) greater than that oftheMilkyWay. Dwarf spheroidals...
quasars Satellitegalaxies List ofsatellitegalaxiesoftheMilkyWay List of Andromeda's satellitegalaxies List of Triangulum's suspected satellite galaxies...
Crater 2 is a low-surface-brightness dwarf satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWay, located approximately 380,000 ly from Earth. Its discovery in 2016 revealed...
dwarf satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWay at a galactic latitude of 11.2°. It spans 1.26° in the sky just southeast of Epsilon Antliae. Thegalaxy is similar...
that the preponderance of evidence points to the accretion of a small satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWay which was orbiting roughly in the plane ofthe galactic...
extremely faint satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWay. It was discovered in the Subaru Strategic Survey. Virgo I has an absolute visual magnitude of -0.8 making...
(POSS). It is part ofthe Local Group and a satellitegalaxyoftheMilkyWaygalaxy. The Draco Dwarf is situated in the direction ofthe Draco Constellation...
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