Washington, Sept 18: Astronomers at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have shown that the Magellanic Clouds are recent arrivals to our galactic neighbourhood.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are two of the Milky Way's closest neighbouring galaxies. A stunning sight in the southern hemisphere, they were named after Ferdinand Magellan, who explored those waters in the 16th century.
For hundreds of years, these galaxies were considered satellites of the Milky Way, gravitationally bound to our home galaxy.