One area in which Swiss astronomers have been active is in investigating galaxies, some of them in distant parts of the universe.

In 2004 astronomers from Geneva, working with French colleagues discovered the most distant galaxy hitherto known, 13.23 billion light years away. They made their discovery using the VLT, or Very Large Telescope, built with Swiss participation at the ESO.

In 2004 a European team with members from Denmark, Sweden and from the Geneva observatory issued the results of a study of the Milky Way carried out over 15 years and which revealed the galaxy to be much more turbulent than previously thought.

Astronomers from Basel University have studied the faint companion galaxies of the Andromeda galaxy, and discovered that their distribution throws up fundamental questions about the currently accepted models for galaxy formation. These findings were presented in 2006.

In 2002 astronomers from Basel were part of an international mission at the ESO which discovered a new group of nebular stars inside the Virgo cluster of galaxies.