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Dwarf galaxy – companion of the Milky Way

Small Magellanic Cloud

In 1912 Henrietta Leavitt discovered, from pulsating stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, how distances in space can be measured – the basis for almost everything on this page.

▶ View in the 3D model

Key figures

Distance

200,000 light-years

Diameter

about 7,000 light-years

Stars

a few billion

In the sky

visible only from the southern hemisphere

Interesting facts

• A bridge of gas stretches between the two Magellanic Clouds, the “Magellanic Stream”.

Torn apart by the Milky Way

The gravity of the Milky Way and of the Large Magellanic Cloud is tugging at it – it is slowly being pulled apart.

Where is it?

Small Magellanic Cloud belongs to the “The Local Group” level of the Cosmic Zoom (field of view about 10 million light-years). The Milky Way is not alone: together with the Andromeda Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy and around 80 small dwarf galaxies it forms the Local Group.

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