Large Magellanic Cloud

Galaxies

The Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, is a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way as a satellite galaxy. About 50 kiloparsecs away, it is among the closest galaxies to the Milky Way and is the fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group. Classified as a Magellanic spiral, it has an off-center stellar bar. It is visible as a faint cloud from the Southern Hemisphere and is predicted to merge with the Milky Way in about 2.4 billion years.

Type: Dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way
Distance: Around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years)
Predicted future: Merger with the Milky Way in approximately 2.4 billion years

Sources and credits

Article: Large Magellanic Cloud (English Wikipedia)
Wikidata: Q49957
Text: Card text is adapted from the English Wikipedia article by an automated summary. Wikipedia content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for its contributors. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Article history and contributors
Illustration: By Robert Gendler/ESO. CC BY 4.0 · File page on Wikimedia Commons
Robert Gendler/ESO, https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1021d/
Modifications: Resized and converted to WebP
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