# Metallicity: What are the metallicity values of various galaxies?

What are the various values of metallicity of various known galaxies, like Milky Way, Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud, Andromeda and so on?

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You mean, local universe? –  Py-ser Jun 27 '14 at 2:08
Ya, I mean the local group in this universe. –  MycrofD Jun 27 '14 at 4:25
Do you need the exact values? And just out of curiosity: why? –  Py-ser Jun 27 '14 at 5:00
yup. i think i need.Working on something. ;). Wikipedia says LMC is 40% of milky and SMC is 10% of milky.but a scientific paper assumes LMC's as 0.008 while for SMC as 0.004. Things that can't be connected. –  MycrofD Jun 27 '14 at 5:07
post the wiki page please. –  Py-ser Jun 27 '14 at 5:16

metallicity is a complicated issue, and giving just one number (usually Z, but also 12+log(O/H), ...) is very rough. But, here are the standard values for the Magellanic clouds:

LMC: Z~1/2

SMC: Z~1/5

with Z=1 being the solar value. Practically, the values will vary across any given galaxy (the Milky Way also has a metallicity gradient).

Reference:

Madden et al. 2014, PUBLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC, 125:600–635, 2013 June http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013PASP..125..600M

The article is also available on astroPH

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