V
Clouds of stars
isible in the night sky from the Southern Hemisphere, the LMC and SMC are about 163, 000
and 200, 000 light years distant, respectively – a long way, to be sure, but just a stone’s throw
compared to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years away. Despite their diminutive
size – they are just 14, 000 and 7,000 light years across, respectively – they are forming stars at a high
rate, particularly the LMC, which has a star-forming region named 30 Doradus or the Tarantula
Nebula (at top left in eof galaxies.
ese detailed images were taken using the 520-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the
Victor M. Blanco four-metre telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, as
part of the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History, known as ‘SMASH’ for short. As the camera’s
name suggests, it ordinarily observes more distant galaxies as a means of measuring the strength of
dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe. However, DECam’s superb resolution
and large eld of view made it perfect for taking in the large expanse on the sky of the Magellanic
Clouds. Images: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/SMASH/D. Nidever (Montana State University).
The greatest survey yet of the Milky Way Galaxy’s two main satellites, the Large and Small
Magellanic Clouds (LMC, left, and SMC, above), has resolved an astonishing 360 million
objects – stars, clusters and nebulae – showing these two dwarf galaxies in unprecedented
detail.
ViewClouds of stars
January 2021
Astronomy Now