how far away is the nearest galaxy?
84637
We are part of the Milky Way. Excluding the Milky Way, the closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy with possibility that the two galaxies may collide within the next three billion years. It is currently 2.5 million light years away.
807791
Well, within 1 lightyear of earth there isn't anything we know of. The nearest Star is Alpha Proxima (or is Centauri B closer now?) and its around 4.5 light years away.\n\nThere are around 100 stars within 50 lightyears of earth and that number grows as you move away. You wont find any other clusters or galaxies until you get to around 2.5 million light years with the closest Galaxy, Andromeda. - the nearest supercluster is more on the order of 50 million light years.
430231
The nearest star, the Sun, is 93 million miles from earth. The second closest, Proxima Centauri, is a small, red star at 4.2 light years.
614661
The closest star to the Earth is the actually Sun, at a distance of 8.3 light minutes (93 million miles), but I suppose you weren't asking about that. \n\nThe next closest star is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away.
909543
If the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years away and it's the only galaxy on Earth to be seen by the naked eye, it leaves us to wonder how far it really is.\n\nPersonally, I googled it. I couldn't find a thing relating to the blank nothingness further than the universe.\nI only looked a little bit, but there are very few educational guesses on the Internet.\n\nMaybe you should try. Googling that is. Maybe it's you who'll find the right words to search it in.  \nThe words stumped me so the was probably my problem.\n\nGood luck on finding the answer!\n-Marissa
857141
Apparent magnitude -- 1.3\nDistance -- 35 light years
1039791
Approximately 384,403 kilometers (238,857 miles). But astronomers think it is getting a little bit further away every year, about 3.8cm per year.
1029269
Actually, 3000 thousand light years (= 3 million light years) is relatively nearby in cosmic terms. The galaxy M33 is at about that distance and is visible to the naked eye in a very dark sky.\n\nAt distances of over ten billion light years we can see galaxies typical of the early universe, and beyond that, the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR).
92471
As large as you can imagine, and possibly larger than that! It depends what you want to call The Universe- is it as long as the distance to the farthest object known to us? Or are there other objects beyond that? If you measure to the farthest visible object, the universe is approximately 12-15 billion light-years away, in all directions.
711947
The nearest black hole known to us is near a visible star called V 4641, in the constellation Sagittarius just 1,600 light years away in the direction of the galactic center.  It is about 3 to 10 solar masses and is classified as a microquasar.
246225
Currently, the accepted view is that the universe is approximately 78 billion light-years in size. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year (a large number since light travels about 186,000 miles each second). To determine this, astronomers used the WMAP project. See the links to determine how this was accomplished, but only if you don't mind being confused (it is quite lengthy and quite confusing - even for an astronomer such as myself!).
845717
An international team of astronomers from France, Italy, the UK and Australia has found a previously unknown galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way. This newly-discovered galaxy takes the record for the nearest galaxy to the centre of the Milky Way. Called the Canis Major dwarf galaxy after the constellation in which it lies, it is about 25000 light years away from thesolar system and 42000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. This i closer than the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, discovered in 1994, which is also colliding with the Milky Way. The discovery shows that the Milky Way is building up its own disk by absorbing small satellite galaxies. The research is to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society within the next few weeks.\n\nThe discovery of the Canis Major dwarf was made possible by a recent survey of the sky in infrared light (the Two-Micron All Sky Survey or "2MASS"), which has allowed astronomers to look beyond the clouds of dust in the disk of the Milky Way. Until now, the dwarf galaxy lay undetected behind the dense disk. "It's like putting on infrared night-vision goggles," says team-member Dr Rodrigo Ibata of Strasbourg Observatory. "We are now able to study a part of the Milky Way that has been previously out of sight".\n\nThe new dwarf galaxy was detected by its M-giant stars =AD cool, red stars that shine especially brightly in infrared light. "We have used these rare M-giant stars as beacons to trace out the shape and location of the new galaxy because its numerous other stars are too faint for us to see," explains Nicolas Martin, also of Strasbourg Observatory. "They are particularly useful stars as we can measure their distances, and so map out the three-dimensional structure of distant regions of the Milky Way disk." In this way, the astronomers found the main dismembered corpse of the dwarf galaxy in Canis Major and long trails of stars leading back to it. It seems that streams of stars pulled out of the cannibalised Canis Major galaxy not only contribute to the outer reaches of the Milky Way's disk, but may also pass close to the Sun.\n\nAstronomers currently believe that large galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their present majestic proportions by consuming their smaller galactic neighbours. They have found that cannibalised galaxies add stars to the vast haloes around large galaxies. However, until now, they did not appreciate that even the disks of galaxies can grow in this fashion. Computer simulations show that the Milky Way has been taking stars from the Canis Major dwarf and adding them to its own disk - and will continue to do so.\n\n"On galactic scales, the Canis Major dwarf galaxy is a lightweight of about only one billion Suns," said Dr. Michele Bellazzini of Bologna Observatory. "This small galaxy is unlikely to hold together much longer. It is being pushed and pulled by the colossal gravity of our Milky Way, which has been progressively stealing its stars and pulling it apart." Some remnants of the Canis Major dwarf form a ring around the disk of the Milky Way.\n\n"The Canis Major dwarf galaxy may have added up to 1% more mass to our Galaxy," said Dr Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney. "This is also an important discovery because it highlights that the Milky Way is not in its middle age - it is still forming." "Past interactions of the sort we are seeing here could be responsible for some of the exquisite detail we see today in the structure of the Galaxy," says Dr Michael Irwin of the University of Cambridge.
21064
The red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri star system, is the nearest star to the Sun. As the name suggests, it is located in the constellation of Centaurus. Proxima Centauri was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes while he was Director of the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, South Africa.\n\nProxima Centauri is roughly 4.22 light years from Earth, or 270,000 times more distant than the Sun.
461764
The moon's distance from the Earth is on average, 384400 km. Converted to inches that comes out to 15,133,858,267.65 inches (a little over 15 billion)\nHowever, due to an eliptical orbit, the moons distance varies from 363,258 km at its nearest point to 405,542 km at its farthest point. Converted that comes out to 14,301,496,062.93 inches at its nearest point to 15,966,220,472.37 inches at its farthest.\nSo, yes, the moon is about 15 billion inches away.  However, at any given time, it can vary anywhere from 14 billion to almost 16 billion inches from the Earth\nBest Wishes
138345
Just about all astronomers agree that at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy (and probably at the center of most other galaxies) lies a supermassive black hole. It probably has a mass at least 2-million times that of our Sun, and is approximately 96-million miles in diameter.\n\nThese figures come from careful observation and measurment of the motions of other objects near the galactic center.\n\nThis page has more info, plus a photo ---\nhttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021018.html
626653
Proxima Centuri. About 4.2 light years away. Check the foll link for more info\n\nst
1161939
This is difficult to answer.  Is there a galaxy destroyed everytime I clean my fingernails?\n\nI don't feel we have a good measure of what a galaxy is, our galaxy seems huge, yet we know very little about the boundaries (i.e. what if there were another galaxy right next to ours that we could not reach, like we were different slices of bread, intimately close, yet forever separated)