The Large Magellanic Cloud is the brightest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and only entered the neighbourhood about 1.5 billion years ago on a collision course with the Milky Way. It currently sits about 163,000 light years from the Milky Way.
Until recently atronomers thought that it would either orbit the Milky Way for many billions of years, or, escape from our galaxy's gravitational pull.
However, recent measurements indicate that the Large Magellanic Cloud has nearly twice as much dark matter than previously thought, meaning it is doomed to collide with our galaxy.
Credit: Nina McCurdy, Nick Risinger, NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech - NASA/ESA/S Beckwith (STScl) The Hubble Heritage Team, The EAGLE Project
Music credit: YouTube Audio Library
Arp Ascent - DivKid
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