Saturday, August 1, 2026
Science

Small Magellanic Cloud is being pulled apart, reshaping how astronomers read its past

Using more than a decade of observations from the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC), researchers measured the motions of millions of stars across the Small Magellanic Cloud with unprecedented precision. The new study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provides direct evidence of a gal...

Small Magellanic Cloud is being pulled apart, reshaping how astronomers read its past
Image: Phys.org
Using more than a decade of observations from the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC), researchers measured the motions of millions of stars across the Small Magellanic Cloud with unprecedented precision. The new study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provides direct evidence of a galaxy-wide tidal disruption of the Small Magellanic Cloud from its interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Originally published at Phys.org

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