Small Magellanic Cloud🌌

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), sitting about 200,000 light-years from Earth, is a companion galaxy to both the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Although smaller than the LMC, the SMC is packed with rich clusters, star-forming regions, and dust clouds that reveal its turbulent history.

The SMC is heavily distorted, stretched, and reshaped by tidal forces due to its close interactions with the LMC. Together, the two dwarf galaxies are connected by the Magellanic Bridge, a long stretch of gas and stars that formed during a past close encounter. These interactions also created the Magellanic Stream, a vast trail of hydrogen gas that wraps behind the two galaxies as they orbit the Milky Way.

Despite its diminutive size, the SMC contains many active star-forming regions and ancient star clusters. It provides astronomers with a living example of how small galaxies evolve, collide, and eventually become absorbed by larger ones.