Magellanic spiral
Type of dwarf galaxy with one spiral arm
A Magellanic spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with only one spiral arm. Magellanic spiral galaxies are classified as the type Sm (with sub-categories SAm, SBm, SABm); the prototype galaxy and namesake for Magellanic spirals is the Large Magellanic Cloud, an SBm galaxy. They are usually smaller dwarf galaxies and can be considered to be intermediate between dwarf spiral galaxies and irregular galaxies. They are found in proximity to larger spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way, as is the case with the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).
Magellanic spiral galaxies also have a stratified stellar structure; main sequence stars are found in their spiral arm, and supergiants are clustered in a thick rectangular bar across the middle.
Magellanic spirals
SAm galaxies are a type of unbarred spiral galaxy, while SBm are a type of barred spiral galaxy. SABm are a type of intermediate spiral galaxy.
Type Sm and Im galaxies have also been categorized as irregular galaxies with some structure (type Irr-1). Sm galaxies are typically disrupted and asymmetric. dSm galaxies are dwarf spiral galaxies or dwarf irregular galaxies, depending on categorization scheme.
The public source identifies “Magellanic spiral” as type of dwarf galaxy with one spiral arm. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Magellanic, spiral and Type.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1255045. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magellanic spiral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.