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How big is the Small Magellanic Cloud?

The Small Magellanic Cloud is 66 exameters

Introduction - The Small Universe Next Door

Did you ever look up at the night sky and wonder what’s out there? There’s a lot to see, from our moon to stars, planets, and even a few galaxies. One of the most fascinating objects in our universe is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). It’s a dwarf galaxy that’s like our little cosmic neighbor, just a hop, skip and a jump away in the grand scale of the universe. To give you an idea, if our Milky Way galaxy was the size of a football field, the SMC would be a small coin sitting next to it.

The Size of the Small Magellanic Cloud

To understand the size of the SMC, you should know what we’re comparing it to. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light-years across. In comparison, the SMC is much smaller, with a diameter of about 18,900 light-years. In terms of size, it’s like comparing a big city to a small town. Here are some quick facts about the size of the SMC:

  • It’s a dwarf galaxy, which means it’s smaller than most other galaxies we know about. - Its diameter is about 18,900 light-years. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 18,900 years to go from one side to the other! - The SMC contains several hundred million stars, which is a lot, but way less than the estimated 200-400 billion stars in our Milky Way. - It has a total mass of approximately 7 billion times the mass of our sun. That’s still just 1 percent of the mass of the Milky Way!

Comparing the Size of the SMC to Other Objects

The SMC is a small galaxy, but it’s still enormous compared to anything in our daily life. Sometimes, it’s easier to understand these massive sizes when we compare them to things we know:

  • The SMC is about 1/5th the size of the Milky Way. If the Milky Way were a pizza, the SMC would be a single slice. - If you look at the sky, the SMC covers an area about 70 times the size of the moon. That’s like if 70 moons were bunched together in the sky! - The SMC is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and appears about 8 times larger than the moon.

Conclusion - A Miniature Galaxy Full of Wonders

In the grand scheme of the universe, the Small Magellanic Cloud is quite tiny. But don’t let its size fool you! This dwarf galaxy is packed with hundreds of millions of stars and is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye. It’s a small piece of the universe, but it holds huge wonders for us to explore and learn from. So the next time you gaze up at the night sky, remember the Small Magellanic Cloud - our tiny, yet incredible, cosmic neighbor.

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Canes Venatici Dwarf Galaxy I
The Canes Venatici Dwarf Galaxy I is 685,000 light-years away from us. If you zoom out to that scale, this galaxy will be a couple pixels across.
Leo II Dwarf Galaxy
The Leo II Dwarf Galaxy is a satellite of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is one of the largest of around a hundred known satellites of the Milky Way. Like most dwarf galaxies, the stars in Leo II are metal-poor. They're also relatively old.
Tarantula Nebula
The Tarantula Nebula is the largest known nebula. It can be found in the Large Magellanic cloud. It's very bright, with an absolute magnitude is -11. It is the brightest nebula ever discovered.
Larger By Category
Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies. It is only 65,000 light-years distant! It is an elliptical galaxy, and a dwarf one as well. It was not discovered until 1994, because it's on the opposite side of the Milky Way from us.
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud is only called large because it is larger than the galaxy nearest to it, the Small Magellanic Cloud. If the Small Magellanic Cloud were larger, the Large Magellanic Cloud would be called the Smaller Magellanic Cloud! We think the two galaxies used to be one, and were split apart by the Milky Way.
NGC 3310
NGC 3310 is another one of those galaxies that have collided with other galaxies, altering their shape. It is a spiral galaxy that has very beautiful arms and is around 35 million light-years away.