The LMC is classified as a Magellanic spiral.[12] It contains a stellar bar that is geometrically off-center, suggesting that it was once a barred dwarf spiral galaxy before its spiral arms were disrupted, likely by tidal interactions from the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and the Milky Way's gravity.[13] The LMC is predicted to merge with the Milky Way in approximately 2.4 billion years.[14]
With a declination of about −70°, the LMC is visible as a faint "cloud" from the southern hemisphere of the Earth and from as far north as 20° N. It straddles the constellationsDorado and Mensa and has an apparent length of about 10° to the naked eye, 20 times the Moon's diameter, from dark sites away from light pollution.[15]
^Buscombe, William (1954). "Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets, The Magellanic Clouds". Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets. 7 (302): 9. Bibcode:1954ASPL....7....9B.
^McAlpine, Stuart; Frenk, Carlos S.; Deason, Alis J.; Cautun, Marius (2019-02-21). "The aftermath of the Great Collision between our Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 483 (2): 2185–2196. arXiv:1809.09116. Bibcode:2019MNRAS.483.2185C. doi:10.1093/mnras/sty3084. ISSN0035-8711.