The Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy completes a rotation every 250 million years, astronomers have found.
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers measured the rotation rate using the clock-like movement of its stars. It’s the first time the rotation rate of a galaxy has been precisely measured in this way.
Astronomer Nitya Kallivayalil, who led the data analysis for the study, said knowing a galaxy’s rotation rate offers insight into how a galaxy has formed, and can be used to calculate its mass.
Read more at University of Virginia