Galaxy
Small Magellanic Cloud
Dwarf irregular galaxy
Dwarf irregular galaxy
Photo: ESA/Hubble and Digitized Sky Survey 2 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. Classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy, the SMC has a D25 isophotal diameter of about 5.78 kiloparsecs (18,900 light-years), and contains several hundred million stars. It has a total mass of approximately 7 billion solar masses. At a distance of about 200,000 light-years, the SMC is among the nearest intergalactic neighbors of the Milky Way and is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye.
Description from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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Key facts
Distance
~200,000 light-years
