The distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud ( LMC ) is crucial for the calibration of the Cosmic Distance Scale .
We derive a distance to the LMC based on an analysis of ground-based photometry and HST -based spectroscopy and spectrophotometry of the LMC eclipsing binary system HV2274 .
Analysis of the optical light curve and HST /GHRS radial velocity curve provides the masses and radii of the binary components .
Analysis of the HST /FOS UV/optical spectrophotometry provides the temperatures of the component stars and the interstellar extinction of the system .
When combined , these data yield a distance to the binary system .
After correcting for the location of HV2274 with respect to the center of the LMC , we find d _ { LMC } = 45.7 \pm 1.6 kpc or ( V _ { 0 } - M _ { v } ) _ { LMC } = 18.30 \pm 0.07 mag .
This result , which is immune to the metallicity-induced zero point uncertainties that have plagued other techniques , lends strong support to the “ short ” LMC distance scale as derived from a number of independent methods .