There
are countless more galaxies around our galaxy in the universe. Local groups are
made up of about fifty such galaxies. The largest member of that group is of
course our Milky Way Galaxy. There are more galaxies around this galaxy like
satellites. One such galaxy is the Large Magellanic Cloud. Today we will
discuss about this satellite galaxy.
Although
the history of human practice with this galaxy is old enough but it was not so
extensive. For it there may be a relation between its position in space and the
land of the earth subject to it. Probably the earliest and oldest written
information about the Large Magellanic Cloud was found in Chile, the
southernmost country in the world, in the Andes Mountain in the western part of
South America. The galaxy is first known from inscriptions and stone carvings
from prehistoric times. Long after this, information about this galaxy
reappeared in a document written by Ibn Qutoybah in 889 AD in West Asia. In
964, the scientist Abd-al-Rahman-al-Sufi-Shirazi gave us detailed information
first time about the Large Magellanic cloud. The first exposure to
this subject in Europe was made in the early sixteenth century by the Italian
writers Peter Martyr d'Angliera and Andrea Corsali, who traveled on Portuguese
vessel. Shortly afterwards, the famous Italian sailor Amerigo Vespucci spoke of
this galaxy around 1503-04. In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan of Portugal, the first
sailor to orbit the Earth by sea, re-mentioned the Large Magellanic Cloud. At
that time there were different names for this galaxy such as Nubecula Major or
Le Grand Nuage etc. In 1847, the famous British scientist John Herschel
observed this galaxy from South Africa and revealed many unknown facts to us.
This man named this galaxy after the infinitely brave Portuguese sailor
Magellan, and since then the galaxy has been known to us as the Magellanic
Cloud. In 1867 Cleveland Abbe first stated that the Large Magellanic cloud is a
completely different galaxy and is located quite a distance from our galaxy. In
1913, Ejnar Hertzsprung first attempted to determine the distance of the Large Magellanic
Cloud from Earth and was somewhat successful.
This
galaxy is located 21 degree away from the Earth's southern Celestial Pole (Celestial
Pole: if it is possible to draw a straight line from both poles of the
earth, it would reach an imaginary point in infinite space. We call this
imaginary point the Celestial Pole). So it is best seen with a telescope or
with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. However, with the naked eye,
the Large Magellanic cloud looks like a fading cloud. To the naked eye, this
galaxy is 20 times larger than the moon. In the Northern Hemisphere, it can be
visible only up to 20 degree latitude, just above the horizon, and only from
December to April of the year. However, in the Southern Hemisphere, the galaxy
stays above the horizon all year round at latitude of 26 degree. Large Megellanic
cloud is never visible from all Europe, North Asia, North Africa and North
America, except Mexico. This galaxy is best visible in the southern skies of
Ecuador in South America, the African countries of Congo, Kenya, Uganda and the
Asian country, Indonesia overnight from sunset in December until sunrise the
next day. Of course, to see this galaxy requires a dark night and a dustless
cloudless sky.
This
galaxy is about the same age as our galaxy, that is, 13 billion, or 1,300 crore
years ago, the Large Magellanic Cloud was born. It is one-tenth of the total
diameter of our galaxy, that is, 14,025 light-years wide. Large Magellanic
Clouds have been actively producing stars because, like other galaxies, these
galaxies contain vast reserves of dust and gas. The mass of a Large Magellanic
Cloud is thought to be equal to 10 billion or 1,000 crore solar masses, but
scientists are skeptical about this mass because they estimate that the galaxy
contains a large amount of Dark Matter. But they are certain that the mass of a
Large Magellanic Cloud will be within one-tenth of the total mass of our galaxy
and cannot be more than that. The galaxy also ranks fourth in terms of the mass
of the local group mentioned.
Scientists
have used different methods at different times to measure the exact distance of
the Earth with this galaxy. These methods have also made it possible to measure
the actual brightness of Large Magellanic Cloud. The distance of this spiral
galaxy is still thought to be accurate from Earth is 50 kiloparasec or 1,63,081.67
light years. In other words, the galaxy is 40,000 light-years closer to the
Small Magellanic Cloud and 20,000,000 light-years closer to the Andromeda
Galaxy. A 2003 study found that after the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy and the
Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, this galaxy is the third closest neighboring
galaxies to our galaxy.
The
region of the galaxy that has the highest amount of gas and dust is where stars
are born, and this region is called the Nebula. The Tarantula Nebula is a
nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud Region whose diameter is 550 light years.
This nebula is the most active of all the local nebulae. The star R136A1, born
from this nebula, is the largest stars in this galaxy. Single Information is
enough to understand its magnitude, and that is that its mass is 236 times
greater than that of our Sun. The average distance from this star to Earth is
1,63,000 light years.
Scientist
Robert Burnham Jr., in his long observations and extensive studies, reported
that in this Large Magellanic Cloud region, there are 60 globular clusters of
stars, 400 planetary nebula from red giant stars, 700 clusters of stars and a
thousand of huge and very huge giant stars. There is also the world's nearest
supernova 1987A. This is why the Large Magellanic Cloud is an active galaxy and
various phenomena are happening here due to the presence of various galactic
objects. So scientists have titled the galaxy various names, such as the
'Astronomical Treasure House' or 'A Great Celestial Laboratory for The Study
and Evolution of The Stars'.
One
of the supernovas of this galaxy is named after Lionel Murphy, a judge of an
Australian High Court. There are two reasons for this naming. The first reason
is the strong interest of the judge in science and the second reason is very
interesting. The shape of the judge's nose is strikingly similar to that of the
supernova, seen from Earth.
The
galaxy is spiral in shape and its central part is grooved. It is thought that
the galaxy lost its arms in the midst of a tug-of-war between the intense
attraction of our galaxy and Small Magellanic Cloud. Also a small connection
between Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud has recently been
discovered. As a result, the effectiveness of intense attraction between these
two galaxies has been more strongly established and proven. In addition, these
two galaxies have a common coating of hydrogen around them, which proves that
the strong gravitational pull between these two galaxies has been effective for
a long time. In this context, we have recently gained very interesting
information. The galaxy of the local group, mentioned earlier, has another galaxy
at its extremity called NGC-3109. Many similarities have been found between
this galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. However, scientists have not yet
understood whether there is any connection between the present and the past.
Based
on data from observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014,
scientists have discovered that the galaxy orbits its center once every 25
crore years. Earlier, based on data sent by this telescope in 2006 and new data
from 2014, scientists have claimed that Large Magellanic Cloud is orbiting its
center and rushing towards our galaxy at a very high speed, just as the
Andromeda Galaxy is rushing towards us. If large magnetic clouds continue to
move towards our galaxy at this speed, it is likely to collide with our galaxy in
the next 2.4 billion or 240 crore years.
Given the present situation, it is not only difficult and impossible to predict the distant future, but it will not be in any real sense. But it is true that if a small change occurs somewhere in a stationary state of system, its traces will be felt even if it is small, it may be far-reaching depending on the magnitude of the event. In this case, the Large Magellanic Cloud will completely merge with our galaxy, its existence will be lost forever from this universe, but only time will tell what effect it will have on vast spreading nebulae, the mother of all stars as well as countless galaxies, their planets, satellites, comets, meteors, asteroids .
DECLARATION: All The Images Have Been Sourced From Google.
