The Local Group -
our place in space

The Local Group, a small cluster of more than 50 galaxies, is our cosmic home. It is dominated by the prominent Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way. These two large spirals are surrounded by an entourage of smaller satellites and dwarf galaxies. Several extremely faint dwarf galaxies have been discovered in the Local Group during the past few years. The members of the Local Group have a wide range of masses and considerable differences in composition, and serve as our laboratories for understanding stellar and galactic evolution in differing environments. The dwarfs include gas-rich irregulars in which star formation is actively underway, and gas-deficient, quiescent spheroidals in which star formation ceased a long time ago. Many of the dwarfs are expected to be eventually accreted by the two massive spirals, Andromeda and the Milky Way. Moreover, Andromeda and our Galaxy are approaching each other and will begin to merge in a few billion years.

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About Eva Grebel

Eva Grebel received her PhD in astronomy from Bonn University in 1995 and carried out research in the United States and Germany before becoming professor of astronomy at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 2003. She is currently professor of astronomy at the Center for Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Her main research interests are the formation and evolution of galaxies, with particular emphasis on the Local Group and the Magellanic Clouds. She is involved in several large international collaborations, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), to explore the evolutionary history of the Milky Way and its surroundings, which in turn provides valuable tests of cosmological models.

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