Dorado
- Spanish:
- “Golden”
Dorado, constellation in the southern sky at about 5 hours right ascension and 60° south in declination. Its brightest star is Alpha Doradus, with a magnitude of 3.2. This constellation contains more than half of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite of the Milky Way Galaxy and one of the nearest galaxies to Earth at a distance of 160,000 light-years. The LMC is home to S Doradus, one of the most luminous stars, and Supernova 1987A, the nearest supernova to Earth in more than 350 years. This constellation was invented by Pieter Dircksz Keyser, a navigator who joined the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies in 1595 and who added 12 new constellations in the southern skies. Its name comes from the Spanish word for the dolphinfish, which lives in the Pacific Ocean and is also commonly known by the Hawaiian name mahimahi.