Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), also known as PGC 17223 and historically as Nubecula Major, is a barred Magellanic spiral (SB(s)m) and a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Located in the constellations of Dorado and Mensa at about 162,980 light-years (49,970 parsecs) away, the Large Magellanic Cloud is the second-closest galaxy to us, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (third-closest if including the disputed Canis Major Overdensity). Careful observations of stars indicates that the LMC is approximately 10 billion solar masses in mass. Being about 140,000 light-years in diameter, it is the fourth-largest object in the Local Group of galaxies, after the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way and the Triangulum Galaxy.

The LMC is one of few galaxies that can be seen with the naked eye. It is visible as a faint "cloud", and is only visible to the southern hemisphere of the Earth. The galaxy is both in the constellations of Dorado and Mensa. Only visible in certain viewing conditions, the galaxy has has an apparent length of about 10° to the naked eye or about 20 times the Moon's diameter. It is one of two Magellanic Clouds, the other one being the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The coordinates for this object in the night sky is 05h 23m 34.5s, −69° 45′ 22″.

The galaxy is predicted to collide with the Milky Way in about 2.4 billion years, which would smash gas clouds together and trigger star formation a little.

Structure and shape
The LMC is a barred Magellanic spiral. The galaxy is classified as an SB(s)m galaxy in the de Vaucouleurs–Sandage extended classification system of spiral galaxies. It is also classified as an irregular galaxy due to its chaotic appearance and its warped shape.

It contains a stellar bar that is off center, which indicates that it was probably once a barred spiral galaxy (SB) before its spiral arms were disrupted, by tidal interactions from the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way's gravity. The central bar appears to be warped and the east and west ends are nearer the Milky Way than the middle part.

The shape of the LMC was long thought to be fully face-on and that the entire galaxy could be assumed to lie at a single distance from the Solar System. However, in 1986, Caldwell and Coulson discovered that Cepheid variable stars in the northeast portion of the galaxy lie closer to the Milky Way than those in the southwest. From 2001 to 2002, this inclined geometry was confirmed. All observations found that the galaxy is inclined by about 35°, which contrast a face-on galaxy which would have an inclination of 0°. The distribution of star clusters in the galaxy appears to lie on a single plane though, as Schommer et al. measured.

Redshifts and derived quantities
The tables below contain quantities derived by the preferred redshift (z) of 0.00093 with the Hubble's constant ($$H_0$$) = 67.8 km/sec/Mpc, Ωmatter = 0.308, Ωvacuum = 0.692