Size comparison: Magellanic Clouds vs Milky Way

Size comparison between the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way.

The Magellanic Clouds are made up of two galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. These two galaxies are satellites of the Milky Way. The distance between the Milky Way and the Magellanic clouds is 160,000 light years. By comparison, the Andromeda galaxy is located 2.5 million light years from our galaxy. The Magellanic clouds have about 30 billion stars, or 8 times less than the Milky Way, this remains an impressive number. We notice that the Magellanic clouds are relatively young. The table below shows only the diameter of the large cloud.

The Milky Way is expected to collide with the Magellanic Clouds in 2.4 billion years. While the collision between the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way is predicted for 4 billion years. We speak of collision, but in reality the distance between the stars is so great that it will be an orderly fusion, without explosion or direct impact between the stars.

Object	Magellanic Clouds	Milky Way
Type	Galaxy	Galaxy
Age	1.1 billion years	13.5 billion years
Diameter	14,000 light years	105,700 light years
Mean radius	7,000 light years	52,850 light years
Mass	2 × 1041 kg	1.6 × 1042 kg
Distance from the Milky Way center	163,000 light years	-
Number of stars	30.1 billion	250 billion
Right ascension	05h 23m 34.5s	17h 45m 39.9s
Declination	−69° 45′ 22″	−29° 00′ 28″

Note: if one of the objects is not visible, it just means that it is too tiny to be displayed compared to the other one.