Ellipticals Elliptical galaxies have much less rotation than spiral galaxies. They are a bit like giant globular clusters, containing little interstellar matter and few young stars. Elliptical galaxies are rather like the halo component of spiral galaxies. Elliptical galaxies range from even more massive than large spiral galaxies, to those that are much smaller. Irregulars The Magellanic Clouds are the nearest galaxies to us and are small irregular galaxies.
Irregulars usually have a lot of gas and are making new stars like spirals.
Maybe how much rotation the cloud that formed them had. Another possibility is that ellipticals form from the merger of spirals. The farthest known galaxies from us are on the order of 3000 Mpc. They are just faint spots of light. Distances to galaxies are very hard to obtain.