Local Volume

The term Local Volume refers to a volume of space around us with a radius of some 10 megaparsecs (this is a matter of definition and sometimes the radius is modified one way or the other in order to have a suitable volume for the topic under study). There are several hundreds of galaxies within this volume. The exact number will not be known at least for several decades, as most of the galaxies are too small or their luminosity is too low for them to be detected. They may also lie hidden in the zone-of-avoidance, caused by the disk of our own galaxy, Milky Way, which is heavily obscured by a large number of gas and dust clouds. Most of galaxies in the Local Volume are members of galaxy groups and clusters.

One interesting and important feature of the Local Volume is that a significant part of the galaxies and groups of galaxies therein are roughly in the same plane that has been named the supergalactic plane.