APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
The Large Cloud Of Magellan (LMC)
Explanation: Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during their famous voyage around the world. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects, not visible to northern hemisphere dwellers , are now known as the Clouds of Magellan. These star clouds are small irregular galaxies , satellites of our larger Milky Way spiral galaxy . The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) pictured above is only about 180,000 light-years distant - the only known galaxy closer is the Sagittarius Dwarf . Both the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are joined to the Milky Way by a stream of cold hydrogen gas. An unusual effect called gravitational lensing has recently been detected in a few LMC stars , and there is hope this could tell us important information about the true composition of our universe.
| Date | January 24, 1998 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit and Copyright: D. Malin (AAO), AATB, ROE, UKS Telescope |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |