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Magellanic Cloud

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.

Magellanic Cloud

Either of two irregular companion galaxies of the Milky Way Galaxy, named for Ferdinand Magellan, whose crew discovered them during the first voyage around the world. They share a gaseous envelope and lie about 22° apart in the sky near the southern celestial pole (see celestial sphere). They are visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere but cannot be seen from northern latitudes. The Large Magellanic Cloud is more than 150,000 light-years from Earth; the Small Magellanic Cloud is roughly 200,000 light-years away. They are excellent laboratories for the study of the formation and evolution of stars.


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The Large Magellanic Cloud streams through space at 378 kilometers per second, while the Small Magellanic Cloud moves at 302 km/see.
Any irregular satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, such as the Large Magellanic Cloud, "is likely to have more than its fair share" of bursts, he adds.
Shock waves from a starburst region in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud compress the surrounding gas, giving life to new generations of stars.
 
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