Greater Magellanic Cloud
| Large Magellanic Cloud | |
|---|---|
The Large Magellanic Cloud
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| Observation data (J2000 epoch) | |
| Constellation | Dorado/Mensa |
| Right ascension | 05h 23m 34.5s |
| Declination | −69° 45′ 22″ |
| Distance | 163.0 kly (49.97 kpc) |
| Apparent magnitude (V) | 0.9 |
| Characteristics | |
| Type | SB(s)m |
| Mass | 1010M☉ |
| Size | 14,000 ly in diameter (~4.3 kpc) |
| Apparent size (V) | 10.75° × 9.17° |
| Other designations | |
| LMC, ESO 56- G 115, PGC 17223,Nubecula Major | |
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of 50 kiloparsecs (≈163,000 light-years), the LMC is the third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (~ 16 kpc) and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy (~ 12.9 kpc, though its status as a galaxy is under dispute) lying closer to the center of the Milky Way. The LMC has a diameter of about 14,000 light-years (4.3 kpc) and a mass of approximately 10 billion Sun masses (1010solar masses), making it roughly 1/100 as massive as the Milky Way. The LMC is the fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Milky Way, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
In the past, the LMC was often considered an irregular type galaxy. However, it is now recognized as a disrupted barred spiral galaxy. The NASA Extragalactic Database, however, still lists the Hubble sequence type as Irr/SB(s)m. In reality, the LMC contains a very prominent bar in its center, suggesting that it may have been a barred dwarf spiral galaxy before its spiral arms were disrupted, likely by the Milky Way's gravity. The LMC's present irregular appearance is likely the result of tidal interactions with both the Milky Way and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).
It is visible as a faint "cloud" in the night sky of the southern hemisphere straddling the border between the constellations of Dorado and Mensa, and it appears from Earth more than 20 times the width of the full moon.
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