What is the Large Magellanic Cloud?
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby galaxy of the Milky Way, our own galaxy. It is only 160,000 light years distant, much less than the more famous Andromeda Galaxy, which is two million light years distant. The Large Magellanic Cloud gets less attention because it is less photogenic, less luminous, and significantly smaller than both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. The Large Magellanic Cloud has a mass of about ten billion Suns, making it only about 1/10th as massive as the Milky Way. The Large Magellanic Cloud is called a “cloud” because of its appearance resembling a cloud — it is not fundamentally different in composition than any other galaxy. Surveys of the Large Magellanic Cloud have found 400 planetary nebulae, 60 globular clusters, and 700 open clusters, with hundreds of thousands of giant and supergiant stars. The most recent supernova, Supernova 1987a, occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Observations of stellar phenomena within the cloud have been used for gener
