Wednesday 27 April 2016

Astrognome Scrapbook Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan

The first expedition to travel around the world was led by Ferdinand Magellan,  the Portuguese explorer died on April 27th 1521.



He saw two nebulous objects in the sky these are of course today known as the Magellanic Clouds, two nearby galaxies; although they had been known for thousands of years and had had been reported by some European explorers. It is  the observations made by Magellan that we use today to name these galaxies.




The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) about 160,000 light years away and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) about 190,000 light years away. Both galaxies are much smaller than our Milky Way galaxy.

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