The Orbits and Total Mass of the Magellanic Clouds

Abstract

This proceeding overviews our current understanding of the orbital history and mass of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Specifically I will argue that the Clouds are on their first infall about our Milky Way and that their total masses are necessarily ~10 times larger than traditionally estimated. This conclusion is based on the recently revised HST proper motions of the Clouds and arguments concerning the binary status of the LMC-SMC pair and their baryon fractions

Conference proceeding appears in "Lessons from the Local Group: A conference in honour of David Block and Bruce Elmegreen"

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Milky Way Satellite Census. II. Galaxy--Halo Connection Constraints Including the Impact of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Orbits of Massive Satellite Galaxies: I. A Close Look at the Large Magellanic Cloud and a New Orbital History for M33
• Quantifying the impact of the Large Magellanic Cloud on the structure of the Milky Way's dark matter halo using Basis Function Expansions
• Quantifying scatter in galaxy formation at the lowest masses
• Going, going, gone dark: Quantifying the scatter in the faintest dwarf galaxies
• Galactic Mass Estimates using Dwarf Galaxies as Kinematic Tracers
• Pre-supernova feedback mechanisms drive the destruction of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• Weighing the Milky Way and Andromeda with Artificial Intelligence
• A Dynamical Mass Estimate from the Magellanic Stream