Nearest Galaxies to the Milky Way
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Nearest Galaxies to the Milky WayThe Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal, at about 78,000 light-years, is among the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, so near that it is slowly being torn apart and absorbed by our galaxy's gravity. The famous Large and Small Magellanic Clouds follow at roughly 163,000 and 205,000 light-years; visible as faint smudges from the southern hemisphere, they are the most prominent satellite galaxies. The remaining entries, Ursa Minor, Draco, Sextans, Sculptor, Carina and Fornax, are dim dwarf spheroidal galaxies detectable only with telescopes. Even the farthest here, Leo I at 820,000 light-years, lies within the Milky Way's gravitational neighbourhood. These distances dwarf those between stars, yet remain tiny next to the 2.5 million light-years to the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbour.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- List of nearest galaxies
- Coverage
- 10 entities · 10 observations
- Measure
- Distance from the Milky Way (light-years)
- Last updated
- 7 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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