Magellanic Clouds

From Slackerpedia Galactica

Two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, visible in the southern hemisphere. They were discovered (by Europeans) during the first circumnavigation of the Earth by Ferdinand Magellan and his crew during their voyage of 1519-1522. But they were known to Arabic and Persian astronomers long, long before, and were certainly known to any South American, African, or Aboriginal Australian with eyes in working order.

The two are cleverly named "Large" and "Small". The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the closer of the two, but is also genuinely larger with 10 billion solar masses worth of stuff -- about ten times the mass of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The LMC is about 150,000 light-years distant, while the SMC is 200,000 light-years distant. Both are Irregular galaxies, but were probably spirals and/or barred spirals before the Milky Way kicked their candy asses distorted them through gravitational tidal forces.

The LMC is sort of in the constellation Dorado, while the SMC is in Tucana. Both are visible to the naked eye, and are actually quite spectacular from a dark sky site. Since southern hemisphere observers have both Magellanic clouds and the best view of the Galactic center, the IAU is considering moving the LMC to Cepheus. Stay tuned for the 2009 General Assembly in Rio for more details.