Large Magellanic Cloud: Nearby Satellite Dwarf Galaxy

[Judi Lynn]

By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | December 4, 2018 05:41pm ET

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that is among the closest galaxies to Earth. At about 163,000 light-years from Earth, the dwarf galaxy looks like a faint cloud in Southern Hemisphere skies. It lies on the border of the constellations Dorado and Mensa.

Both the LMC and its companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are named after the explorer Ferdinand Magellan. While astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere saw these clouds before Magellan's round-the-world voyage in 1519, the explorer and his crew were the first to bring that knowledge to the Western world.

Magellan died in the Philippines during that voyage, but his crew provided documentation of the discovery upon their return to Europe.

LMC location
Magellan's discovery of the LMC and SMC predated telescopes, but even after the instruments allowed Galileo and astronomers in the 17th century to get a closer look, it was still several hundred years before scientists could accurately calculate the distance to the LMC, the SMC and other nearby galaxies.

More:
https://www.space.com/25450-large-magellanic-cloud.html

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. Galileo never left Italy, so he cannot have seen the LMC. n/t