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The Milky Way is part of a group of galaxies known as the Local Group, which consists of several galaxies. The closest galaxies to the Milky Way within the Local Group are:

  1. Andromeda Galaxy (M31): The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and is located about 2.537 million light-years away. It is slightly larger than the Milky Way and is on a collision course with our galaxy. The collision is predicted to occur in about 4 billion years.

  2. Triangulum Galaxy (M33): Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest galaxy in the Local Group and is located approximately 2.723 million light-years away from the Milky Way. It is smaller than both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.

Apart from these two main galaxies, the Local Group also contains several smaller dwarf galaxies, some of which are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way or Andromeda. Examples include the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and the dwarf elliptical galaxy known as M32, which is a satellite of Andromeda.

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