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It is the largest known spiral galaxy with the isophotal diameter of over 717,000 light-years (220 kiloparsecs). [ 1 ] This is a list of largest galaxies known, sorted by order of increasing major axis diameters.
Size (left) and distance (right) of a few well-known galaxies put to scale. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in all of the observable universe. [1] On the order of 100,000 galaxies make up the Local Supercluster, and about 51 galaxies are in the Local Group (see list of nearest galaxies for a complete list).
A spiral galaxy is a type of galaxy characterized by a central bulge of old Population II stars surrounded by a rotating disc of younger Population I stars. A spiral galaxy maintains its spiral arms due to density wave theory.
Halo stars may be acquired from small galaxies which fall into and merge with the spiral galaxy—for example, the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is in the process of merging with the Milky Way and observations show that some stars in the halo of the Milky Way have been acquired from it.
Therefore, later generations of stars formed in this spiral disk. Most younger stars, including the Sun, are observed to be in the disk. [251] [252] Since the first stars began to form, the Milky Way has grown through both galaxy mergers (particularly early in the Milky Way's growth) and accretion of gas directly from the Galactic halo. [252]
Most distant (difficult) naked eye object. Closest unbarred spiral galaxy to us and third largest galaxy in the Local Group. 61,100 ly 96 Andromeda XXI [68] dSph [55] 2.802 0.859 −9.9 Local Group: Satellite of Andromeda 97 Tucana Dwarf: dE5 2.87 0.88 [7] −9.16 15.7 [1] Local Group [7] Isolated group member — a 'primordial' galaxy [69] 98 ...
NGC 6872, also known as the Condor Galaxy, [3] is a large barred spiral galaxy of type SB(s)b pec in the constellation Pavo. It is 212 million light-years (65 Mpc ) from Earth. [ 3 ] NGC 6872 is interacting with the lenticular galaxy IC 4970 , which is less than one twelfth as large.
Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321 or the Mirror Galaxy) is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. [5] It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and is approximately 55 million light-years [ 3 ] from our galaxy , about 166,000 light-years in diameter.