The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) - one of the Milky Way's 59 currently known satellite "dwarf" galaxies, located about 163,000 light-years from Earth. According to the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), the Large Magellanic Cloud is about 32,469.6 light-years across (about one-third the diameter of the Milky Way) and hosts around 20 billion stars. The LMC and its neighboring galaxy: the Small Magellanic Cloud are visible to the unaided eye from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. The Large Magellanic Cloud is the second- or third-closest galaxy to our Milky Way (after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal - 52,000 light-years and the Canis Major Overdensity - 25,000 light years from Earth). #galaxy #space #astronomy #universe #milkyway
Credits: National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA, European Space Agency - ESA, European Southern Observatory ESO, N. Rinsinger (skysurvey.org), Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Canadian Space Agency - CSA, Space Telescope Science Institute - STScI, Webb Space Telescope ERO Production Team, V. Ksoll and D. Gouliermis (Universität Heidelberg), et al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America). / Music "Mysterious voices" by "ChristmasKrumble666" / freesound.
