Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located about 160,000–200,000 light‑years away in the southern constellations Dorado and Mensa. Roughly 10,000 light‑years across, it is rich in star-forming regions—such as the Tarantula Nebula—and contains billions of stars.
Source: science.nasa.gov
APODs including "Large Magellanic Cloud"
XMM-Newton First Light: X-Rays From The LMC
11/02/2000
Recently the European Space Agency released this and other spectacular "first light" pictures from its new orbiting x-ray observatory, christened XMM-Newton. A churning region of star birth and death in our small neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), this field was one of several chosen to test out XMM-Newton's x-ray imaging capabilities. The picture is a false-colour one in which low energy x-rays are translated to red, medium energy to green, and high energy to blue. Image colours therefore represent the relative million degree temperatures of the x-ray emitting regions, red being the coolest and blue the hottest. Remains of the star that exploded as Supernova 1987a appear here as the white x-ray source at the lower right, while another supernova remnant, cataloged as N157D is the brightest source at the upper left. The bluish arc (near center) also appears to be a supernova remnant whose expanding debris cloud is interacting with the LMC's local interstellar gas.