Magellanic Clouds

Magellanic Clouds

Abstract:

The Universe is filled with a lot of interesting things. It is important for us to know what we are surrounded by, and having many topics to choose from, I chose Magellanic Clouds because I found them very interesting. There were are a lot of things to know about them.

Introduction:

Magellanic Clouds are visible from the southern hemisphere. These clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies, and are members of our Local Group. The Local group is a group of galaxies that include the Milky Way, and many others. The irregular dwarf galaxies are thought to be orbiting our Milky Way galaxy, because Both clouds show signs of bar structure, which are often reclassified as Magellanic spiral galaxies. The two types of Magellanic clouds are, Large Magellanic Cloud, and Small Magellanic Cloud.

Body:

The large Magelanic Cloud (LMC), as seen above, is approximately 163,000 light-years away. This cloud is the thirst closest galaxy to our Milky Way, next to the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal, and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer. The cloud has a mass of approximately 10 billions times the mass of our sun. The LMC is the fourth largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy, our own Milky Way Galaxy, and the Triangulum Galaxy. Since it is said that the cloud has an irregular appearance, it is possible that was caused by the result of tidal interactions with both the Milky Way and the Small Magellanic Cloud. This cloud is described as a faint cloud in the sky of the southern hemisphere between the border of the constellations of Dorado and Mensa. It appears from Earth more than 20 times the width of a full moon.

The first time that this cloud was mentioned was by a Persian astronomer in a book called “Book if fixed stars”, around 964 AD. It was seen and recorded two other times in the 1500’s. In 2006 it was announced that the Large and small Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be orbiting the...