Local Group

The Local Group (LG) is a galaxy group of 100+ galaxies (by some counts, as of 2023), that includes the Milky Way, Andromeda, Triangulum Galaxy, and a number of dwarf galaxies (generally satellite galaxies) such as Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud, Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy, Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, Ursa Major II Dwarf, and Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte. The exact number is unclear because groupings of stars continue to be discovered, then consensus must be reached regarding whether to classify them as galaxies (and possibly consensus is never reached), and additional observations can lead to reclassification. Also, some are undoubtedly unknown because portions of the sky are obscured (e.g., the zone of avoidance) and identifying such nearby dwarf galaxies is non-trivial, given the intervening Milky-Way stars, as well as intervening dwarf galaxies.

The Local Group's diameter is about 10 mega-light-years. It is part of the Local Sheet and the Virgo Supercluster. The Local Group galaxies are moving toward the Virgo Cluster, (i.e., there is a difference in their relative velocity and the Hubble flow) which resides at the center of the Virgo Supercluster. The movement, which is (very roughly) on the order of 100 km/s, is termed the Virgocentric flow (VCF or Virgocentric peculiar velocity).