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Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a gigantic collection of stars, dust, and gas. It looks like a spiral when viewed from the top or bottom, and we earthlings exist on one of the spiral arms of the galaxy, about 25,000 light years away from its center. The Milky Way was first measured in 1917 by Harlow Shapley, when he determined it to be about 100,000 light years in diameter!

The Local Group is the group of galaxies to which our already huge galaxy belongs! More than 20 galaxies are included in the Local Group, about half of which are elliptical in shape, while they others are spiral or irregular shaped galaxies. The largest galaxy in the group is the Andromeda galaxy, also called Messier 31 or M31, which scientists estimate to be 260,000 light years wide. It's mass, however, may be even less than that of the Milky Way! Pictures of other galaxies in the group can be found here.

The Local Group and our general galactic neighborhood are being pulled towards something called the Great Attractor, located in the ominous sounding Zone of Avoidance. The zone is so named because it is obscured by cosmic dust and the angle of our galactic plane.