The
Large Magellanic Cloud (
LMC) is a nearby
galaxy, and a
satellite of the
Milky Way. At a distance of 50
kiloparsecs (˜163,000
light-years), the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the
Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (~ 16 kiloparsecs) and the putative
Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy (~ 12.9 kiloparsecs, though its status as a galaxy is under dispute) lying closer to the center of the Milky Way. The LMC has a diameter of about 14,000 light-years (~ 4.3
kpc) and a mass of approximately 10 billion Sun masses (10
10 solar masses), making it roughly 1/100 as massive as the Milky Way. The LMC is the fourth largest galaxy in the
Local Group, after the
Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Milky Way, and the
Triangulum Galaxy (M33).