NASA’s Hubble Sees Aftermath of Galaxy’s Scrape with Milky Way

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-sees-aftermath-of-galaxys-scrape-with-milky-way/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nn50 The Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, is one of the Milky Way galaxy's nearest neighbors, and now, for the first time, astronomers have been able to measure the size of the LMC's halo—something they could only do with the Hubble Space Telescope. Researchers were surprised to find that it is only about 50,000 light-years across—that's approximately 10 times smaller than halos of other galaxies that are similar in mass. Its compactness tells the story of its encounter with the Milky Way.