Small Magellanic Cloud

SMC · A nearby dwarf galaxy

The Small Magellanic Cloud lies about 200,000 light-years from us. We see its stars and clouds by light that began travelling roughly 200,000 years ago.

The moving dashes represent light travelling between galaxies. Their speed and the spacing of the galaxy icons are illustrative.

≈ 7,000 light-years across.

NASA’s Swift overview gives a rounded stellar extent of 7,000 light-years. The diffuse outskirts have no sharp edge, and this reference size does not describe the galaxy’s full depth or dark-matter halo.

The overview compares this galaxy with a rounded Milky Way reference of 100,000 light-years on one linear scale. These luminous extents do not represent sharp physical edges.

Star clouds and glowing gas

The stellar body is elongated and irregular, without the orderly arms of a large spiral. Young stars illuminate gas in regions such as NGC 346. The schematic separates the diffuse stellar body from bright gas clouds; it is not a three-dimensional reconstruction.

Select Stars or Gas to highlight the irregular stellar body and star-forming clouds. Pulsing light is illustrative, not a physical change in brightness.

Linked to a larger companion

The Small Magellanic Cloud shares a history of interactions with the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way. Gas stripped from this environment contributes to the Magellanic Stream, which stretches far beyond the bright galaxies.