The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs, the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity. It is about 9.86 kiloparsecs across, and has roughly one-hundredth the mass of the Milky Way making it the fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Milky Way, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
Key Facts
| Subject | Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Category | Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way |
| Reading time | 1 min · Advanced |
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