The Leo Triplet (also known as the M66 Group) is a small
group of galaxies
A galaxy group or group of galaxies (GrG) is an aggregation of galaxies comprising about 50 or fewer gravitationally bound members, each at least as luminous as the Milky Way (about 1010 times the luminosity of the Sun); collections of galaxies ...
light-year
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...
constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the e ...
spiral galaxies
Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''M65, M66, and NGC 3628.
Members
The table below lists galaxies that have been consistently identified as group members in the Nearby Galaxies Catalog, the Lyons Groups of Galaxies (LGG) Catalog, and the group lists created from the Nearby Optical Galaxy sample of Giuricin et al.
Member list
Additionally, some of the references cited above indicate that one or two other nearby galaxies may be group members. NGC 3593 is frequently but not consistently identified as a member of this group.
Nearby groups
The
M96 Group
The M96 Group (also known as the Leo I Group) is a group of galaxies in the constellation Leo. This group contains between 8 and 24 galaxies, including three Messier objects. It also contains the Leo Ring. The group is one of many groups tha ...
is located physically near the Leo Triplet. These two groups may actually be separate parts of a much larger group,
and some group identification algorithms actually identify the Leo Triplet as part of the M96 Group.
See also
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NGC 5866 Group
The NGC 5866 Group is a small group of galaxies located in the constellation Draco. The group is named after NGC 5866, the galaxy with the highest apparent magnitude in the group, although some galaxy group catalogs list NGC 5907 as the brighte ...