Hi, There are a number of "dwarf" galaxies near our galaxy, the Milky Way.
The closest currently know in the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, which is 25,000 light years away. That is still very far away. As you may know, that means it would take a light, which goes faster than anything else, 25,000 years to get from the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy to Earth.

Although it is thought to be the closest galaxy, the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is not easy to see - is was only discovered in 2003. In order to see it astronomers had to look through the dust in the plane of the Milky Way, which was difficult.

Two galaxies that are close but not the closest are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. the Large Magellanic Cloud is 179,000 light years away and the Small Magelalnic Cloud 210,000 light years away. If you in the southern hemisphere you can see them easily if the sky is dark - they look like large fuzzy patches,

You can read more about close by galaxies at.
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa...est_galaxy_info.html

Terry

In her answer, Terry talked about the distances to dwarf galaxies. The distance to the nearest "large-spiral galaxy" is about 2.5 million light years...that would be the Andromeda Galaxy. That means that light created in the Andromeda Galaxy today will take 2.5 million years to reach Earth.

If the sky is clear and dark, the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen tonight just after sunset as a faint fuzzy patch in the northwest part of the sky.