5. What is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, and how far away is it?

The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. Andromeda is a spiral galaxy with a diameter of 220,000 light-years and a distance of 150,000 light-years between the ends of its arms. Andromeda is located at a distance of approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth.

The Milky Way has an estimated average diameter of about 105,700 light-years. Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the Sun. Distance varies slightly throughout the year due to Earth’s elliptical orbit.

“The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye as a diffuse patch in the night sky and is one of the most fascinating and studied objects by astronomers (…), along with the Milky Way, the largest and brightest of the galaxies in the Local Group, of approximately 30 small galaxies plus three large spiral galaxies: Andromeda, the Milky Way, and the Triangulum Galaxy.” Wikipedia.