Space and astronomy news
Illustration of the Large Magellanic Cloud passing through the halo of the Milky Way. Credit: NASA, ESA, Ralf Crawford
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small galaxy, just a tenth of the Milky Way’s mass. It is about 160,000 light years away, which is remarkably close in cosmic terms. In the southern hemisphere it spans the width of 20 Moons in the night sky. While the galaxy seems timeless and unchanging to our short human lives, it is, in fact, a dynamic system undergoing a near collision with our galaxy. Now astronomers are beginning to observe that process.
The LMC is unusual for a dwarf galaxy because it’s unusually dense. Based on stellar motion within the LMC, it appears to have a rather small halo surrounding it. This has led some astronomers to argue that the galaxy is not in orbit around the Milky Way. Instead, it is simply passing our galaxy, having made its closest approach.
In the future, the team would like to use more quasars to further map the LMC halo, particularly in the front region where the halo is directly colliding with that of the Milky Way. Such work will help us better understand what happens when galaxies interact and how that can affect the evolution of those galaxies.
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