The Magellanic Clouds are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because both show signs of a bar structure, they are often reclassified as Magellanic spiral galaxies.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
Small and Large Magellanic Clouds over Paranal Observatory
ALMA antennae bathed in red light. In the background are the southern Milky Way on the left and the Magellanic Clouds at the top.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape, unlike a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. Irregular galaxies do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, and they are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge nor any trace of spiral arm structure.
NGC 1427A, an example of an irregular galaxy. It is an Irr-I category galaxy about 52 Mly distant.
Blue compact dwarf galaxy ESO 338-4.
IC 4710 lies roughly 25 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Pavo.
Irregular galaxy IC 3583 has been found to have a bar of stars running through its center.