Small Magellanic Cloud

noun

: a pair of small galaxies that is located 200,000 light-years away from the Milky Way and is visible within 25 degrees of the south celestial pole

Scientists using the Spitzer Space Telescope claimed to have found the glowing traces of the universe's first generation of stars. Roughly 5,000 baby stars were discovered in the Small Magellanic Cloud, and spectrographic imagery captured a young star fleeing a giant black hole that had already swallowed the star's twin; at its present rate of speed, the star will eventually leave the Milky Way …

—Bill Armstrong

called also Magellanic Cloud

Examples of Small Magellanic Cloud in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

What’s more, the galaxy also had a low mass, similar to a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way known as the Small Magellanic Cloud — which is still forming new stars. —Ashley Strickland, CNN, 6 Mar. 2024

These are called the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. —Dean Regas, The Enquirer, 2 Mar. 2024

The picture is lovely, showing a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own. —Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 26 Feb. 2010

Anyway, one of the neatest features in the Small Magellanic Cloud is a particularly bright cluster of stars known as NGC 346, discovered about 200 years ago by a Scottish astronomer. —Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 23 Oct. 2023

This is the brightest and biggest star-making region in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way called the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). —Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 11 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1897, in the meaning defined above