Large Magellanic Cloud – Astronomy Now

Astronomers use Hubble to learn more about the birth of massive suns

23 March 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers are using the Hubble Space Telescope to study massive stars in a stellar nursery near the Tarantula Nebula to learn why most form in clusters but some appear to form in isolation.

Supernova remnant dazzles in Large Magellanic Cloud

20 February 2020 Astronomy Now

A supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud displays a beautiful tapestry of wispy gas that will provide the raw material for another generation of stars.

ESO’s VISTA captures detailed look at galactic neighbour

15 September 2019 Astronomy Now

The European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope captures a stunning near-infrared view of the Large Magellanic Cloud in a survey to characterize the dwarf galaxy’s structure, stellar population and dynamics.

A stellar nursery bubbles up in the Large Magellanic Cloud

8 February 2019 Astronomy Now

Vast bubbles of ionised hydrogen gas are illuminated by hot young stars in gargantuan stellar nurseries like this one in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. This complex assembly of bubbles is host to a wide variety of objects, including one massive stellar object emitting a 33-lightyear-long jet.

The Sun expected to ride out a looming galactic merger

4 January 2019 Astronomy Now

A collision between the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud in about 1.5 billion years likely will re-energize the supermassive black hole lurking in our galaxy’s core.

Large Magellanic Cloud may be result of past galactic merger

18 September 2018 Astronomy Now

Computer simulations indicated the Large Cloud of Magellan may have merged with another luminous galaxy three to five billion years ago, a scenario that explains unusual stellar motions and ages.

Gaia takes a fingerprint of the Large Magellanic Cloud

3 May 2018 William Harwood

The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft collected proper motion data for several million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, allowing astronomers to visualize its rotation in a unique fingerprint-like pattern.

Hubble spotlights irregular galaxy IC 3583

28 November 2016 Astronomy Now

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a delicate blue group of stars — actually an irregular galaxy named IC 3583 — that sits some 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. This small galaxy is thought to be gravitationally interacting with one of its neighbours, the spiral Messier 90.

Major supercluster of galaxies found hidden by the Milky Way

17 November 2016 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers has discovered a previously unknown major concentration of galaxies in the constellation Vela, which they have dubbed the Vela supercluster. The gravitational attraction from this large mass concentration in our cosmic neighbourhood may have an important effect on the motion of our Local Group of galaxies.

Record-breaking extragalactic gamma-ray binary found

30 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and other facilities, an international team has found the first gamma-ray binary in another galaxy and the most luminous one ever seen. The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays.