MAGELLANIC CLOUD Definition & Meaning

Magellanic cloud

noun

Astronomy.

either of two irregular galactic clusters in the southern heavens that are the nearest independent star system to the Milky Way.

Magellanic Cloud

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noun

either of two small irregular galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (Nubecula Major) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (Nubecula Minor), lying near the S celestial pole; they are probably satellites of the Galaxy. Distances: 163 000 light years (Large), 196 000 light years (Small)

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of Magellanic cloud¹

First recorded in 1675–85

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Yet recent images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope seem to contradict that notion by showing protoplanetary disks in a dwarf galaxy adjacent to our own Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud.

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The last nearby supernova was in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way's satellites.

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The newly imaged star, WOH G64, lies within the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the small galaxies that orbits the Milky Way.

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For this study, Chiti and his colleagues aimed their telescopes at an unusual target: the stars that make up the Large Magellanic Cloud.

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The Large Magellanic Cloud is a bright swath of stars visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.

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