An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A class of low-mass galaxies with relatively rare features. In particular, these galaxies are characterized by a → stellar bar whose center is displaced from that of the disk and a one-armed spiral. The → Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is considered the prototype of this class of objects. However, despite a wealth of data, there is still a good deal of uncertainty concerning the nature of the LMC’s bar.

The majority of the observed Magellanic spirals in the nearby Universe share the LMC’s structure, in particular the evidence of an offset bar and a one-armed spiral structure. A good example of these systems is NGC 3906, which shows evidence of the bar offset from the photometric center of the galaxy by 1.2 kpc (Pardy et al., 2016, ApJ 827, 149).

See also: → Magellanic; → spiral; → galaxy.