The Large Cloud Of Magellan (LMC)
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.