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The Large Magellanic Cloud occupies the region of the sky of the southern hemisphere in the constellations Dorado and Table Mountain and is never visible from the territory of Russia. The LMC is about 10 times smaller in diameter than the Milky Way and contains approximately 30 billion stars (1/20 of our galaxy), while the Small Magellanic Cloud contains only 1.5 billion stars. The LMC mass is approximately 300 times less than the mass of our galaxy (LMC mass = 1010 solar masses). The LMC is the fourth largest galaxy in the Local Group (after Andromeda, the Milky Way, and Triangulum). According to the figurative expression of F. Yu. Siegel, the Large Magellanic Cloud remotely resembles a Segner wheel.
In 2013, the most accurate distance to the LMC was measured by an international team of astronomers. It is 163 thousand light years or 49.97 kiloparsecs. Observations have been made on eclipsing binary stars in the galaxy for nearly a decade. Such stars turn very close to each other around a common center of mass, obscuring one another. At the same time, their overall brilliance decreases. So, tracking the pulsations of these stars, you can determine their masses, sizes and distances to them.
LMC is named after Ferdinand Magellan, who observed this galaxy in 1519 during a trip around the world.
The first written mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud is contained in the "Book of Constellations of the Fixed Stars" by the Persian astronomer As-Sufi (964). The next documented sighting was recorded in 1503-1504 by Amerigo Vespucci.
Supernova SN 1987A erupted in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987. This is the closest supernova to us since SN 1604. In the LMC there is a well-known hotbed of active star formation with a length of 700 light years - the Tarantula Nebula.
The brightest star in the galaxy is S Dorado (lat. S Doradus). This is a hypergiant, one of the brightest stars known to science, in terms of luminosity, it surpasses our Sun by 500,000 times. The star is the prototype for variable stars classified as S Doradus (S Dor).
The most massive star in the LMC is R136a1, located in the compact star cluster R136. It is a blue hypergiant with a mass equal to 265 solar masses. The surface temperature of the star is more than 40,000 Kelvin, it is several million times brighter than the Sun. Such superheavy stars are extremely rare and form only in very dense star clusters.
The galaxy's largest star, WOH G64, is also one of the largest known to science. Its radius is approximately 1540 solar radii. If WOH G64 is placed in the center of the solar system, then the surface will reach the orbit of Saturn. The star is also surrounded by a dense torus of dust and gas.
The LMC shines 10 times fainter than the Milky Way, but is its brightest companion of two dozen satellite galaxies. Due to its gravity, the LMC pulls millions of stars from the Small Magellanic Cloud (LMC) towards it. There are several thousand orange and red giants in the galaxy, aging stars that are larger, brighter and colder than the Sun. About 5% of these stars have very special speed characteristics: they rotate at an angle of 54 degrees to the LMC plane, and also in the opposite direction compared to the bulk of the stars. The chemical composition of these stars also differs: in terms of the percentage of iron, they correspond to the MMO.
Unlike most deep space objects, the LMC is not a separate NGC object.
According to published data, according to one of the models, after 4 billion years the Milky Way will "absorb" the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and after 5 billion years it will itself be absorbed by the Andromeda Nebula.
