66 ASTRONOMY • APRIL 2021
BREAKTHROUGH
STARBIRTH RUNS WILD IN NEARBY GALAXY
For a dwarf galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) punches well above its weight. Most such galaxies have long
since exhausted the hydrogen needed to create stars, but each of the reddish clouds sprinkled across this satellite of
the Milky Way harbors hundreds or thousands of newborn suns. Astronomers suspect a recent collision with its bigger
neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud, triggered the outburst. Scientists recorded the SMC with the 4-meter Victor M.
Blanco Telescope on Cerro Tololo in Chile as part of the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History (SMASH). The portrait
also captured the sky’s second-brightest globular cluster, 47 Tucanae, to the SMC’s upper right, as well as the smaller
but still impressive globular NGC 362 to the galaxy’s upper left. CTIO/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/SMASH/D. NIDEVER (MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY)