Deep-sky object
Large Magellanic Cloud
Large Magellanic Cloud is a barred irregular galaxy somewhere between 159 950 and 163 540 light-years away, about 30 000 light-years across.
The biggest of the Milky Way's companion galaxies, a naked-eye cloud from the southern hemisphere, and the reason the ladder has a local-group rung at all.
See it live
It is on the live 3D map, where it really is.
Key facts
- Type
- barred irregular galaxy
- Distance
- 159 950 to 163 540 light-years
- Size
- about 30 000 light-years across
- Brightness from Earth
- magnitude 0.1
See it from here
Bright enough to see with your own eyes from a dark place.
How the map draws it
Drawn as a soft glow in the manner of its kind at its measured distance, as wide as it measures; the pattern in it is illustrative and its true shape is not drawn — the kind of thing, not this exact one.