The LMC's cosmic zoo The proximity of the Large Magellanic Cloud
makes it a very important target as it can be studied in far
more detail than more distant systems. June 4, 2010 Provided by
ESO, Garching, Germany June 4, 2010 Detailed view of a section
of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Photo by ESO Astronomers often
turn their telescopes to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one
of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way, in their quest to
understand the universe. In this spectacular new image from the
Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, a
celestial menagerie of different objects and phenomena in part
of the LMC is on display, ranging from vast globular clusters to
the remains left by brilliant supernova explosions. This
fascinating observation provides data for a wide variety of
research projects unraveling the life and death of stars and the
evolution of galaxies. The LMC is only about 160,000 light-years
from our own Milky Way — very close on a cosmic scale. This
proximity makes it