Map of the Universe

Magellanic Clouds

A view about 520,000 light-years across · Milky Way

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The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way’s biggest satellite galaxies, about 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away. Both are visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere.

On the map at this scale

Star clusters

Galaxies

Regions, structures and cosmic epochs

Every scale, from Earth outwards

  1. Earth and Moon 0.008 AU
  2. Inner planets 4 AU
  3. Jupiter's orbit 14 AU
  4. Neptune and the Kuiper belt 110 AU
  5. Heliopause and Voyagers 400 AU
  6. Oort cloud 4 light-years
  7. Nearest stars 24 light-years
  8. 100 light-years 220 light-years
  9. 1,000 light-years 2,400 light-years
  10. Local Arm 12,000 light-years
  11. Galactic centre 13,000 light-years
  12. Milky Way 160,000 light-years
  13. Magellanic Clouds 520,000 light-years
  14. Satellite galaxies 2 million light-years
  15. Local Group 10 million light-years
  16. Council of Giants 36 million light-years
  17. Virgo Supercluster 230 million light-years
  18. Laniakea 850 million light-years
  19. Nearby superclusters 2.3 billion light-years
  20. Cosmic web 11 billion light-years
  21. Observable universe 100 billion light-years