Small and Large Magellanic Clouds

Celestial News & Events

Clouds, Large and Small, of the Southern Sky

Jonathan Nally sets out to explore the Southern Hemisphere sky, starting with two uniquely southern sights: the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

Image of Small Magellanic Cloud

Milky Way

Evidence Mounts for a Magellanic Collision

Astronomers have suspected for some time that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds collided in the recent past. The Gaia space telescope provides striking new evidence for a head-on collision.

Magellanic Clouds

Milky Way

The Magellanic Clouds Might Once Have Been a Trio

The Milky Way's two largest companion galaxies may have once been a threesome — but new data from the Gaia satellite leaves the satellites' history an open question.

Galaxies

Disentangling the History of the Magellanic Clouds

The Magellanic Clouds — two nearby dwarf galaxies easily visible to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere — are key to understanding the dynamics and evolution of the Local Group of galaxies. Can an in-depth look at these galaxies’ outer regions help us make sense of their complicated interaction history?

Magellanic Clouds

Stellar Science

Supergiant Star Caught Fleeing In Another Galaxy

The discovery of a runaway star in the Small Magellanic Cloud suggests that runaway stars are a common phenomenon in the universe.

Small Magellanic Cloud at radio wavelengths

Galaxies

New Telescope Sees Galaxy Down to Its Atoms

Astronomers have obtained the most detailed radio image of hydrogen gas in a neighboring galaxy, revealing its structures with more precision than ever before.

Milky Way

Analog of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds

A hunt for merging dwarf galaxies has yielded an intriguing result: 180 million light-years away, a galaxy very similar to the Milky Way — with two dwarf-galaxy satellites just like our own Magellanic clouds

Magellanic Clouds

Galaxies

Astronomers Discover Magnetic Bridge Between Magellanic Clouds

A magnetic field appears to span the space between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two dwarf galaxies being consumed by our Milky Way Galaxy.

Large and Small Magellanic Clouds

Hobby-based Q&A

Why are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds not listed among the Caldwell objects?

Why are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds not listed among the Caldwell objects? They are also not given in Stephen James O’Meara’s book The Messier Objects in the list of 20 spectacular non-Messier objects nor among O’Meara’s 20 spectacular non-Caldwell objects in The Caldwell Objects. Are they too bright?…