Magellanic Clouds

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Magellanic Clouds, small, irregular galaxies that lie relatively near the Milky Way galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in the constellation Dorado (the Goldfish), and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan), are visible to the unaided eye in the southern hemisphere and as far north as 16° North latitude. They became known in Europe through descriptions made in 1521 by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, after whom they were named. The LMC lies about 150,000 light-years away from our sun, and the SMC lies about 173,000 light-years away. In the early 1980s, another galaxy, called the Mini Magellanic Cloud (MMC), was determined to lie about 20,000 light-years beyond the SMC, in the same line of sight. Apparently it was torn from the SMC by a near encounter with the LMC about 200 million years ago. A supernova was observed in the LMC in 1987.

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