Small Magellanic Cloud

Smaller of the two irregular galaxies that make up the Magellanic Clouds. These two galaxies orbitThe elliptical path of one body around another, typically the path of a small body around a much larger body. However, depending on the mass distribution of the objects, they may rotate around an empty spot in space • The Moon orbits around the Earth. • The Earth orbits around Click on Term to Read More the Milky Way once every 1,500 million years, and each other once every 900 million years. Located 200,000 light years away, the SMC has a mass of ~3 billion Msun. Some observations suggest that it might be a barred disk galaxyConcentration of 10⁶ to 10¹² stars, dust and gas, that are gravitationally bound. Our galaxy contains ~2 × 10¹¹ stars. There are four main types of galaxies: • Elliptical
• Lenticular
• Spiral
• Irregular
Click on Term to Read More, deformed by gravitational interactions with the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Magellanic Stream, a tail of gas that has been stripped from the SMC/LMC systemDefinable part of the universe that can be open, closed, or isolated. An open system exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings. A closed system can only exchange energy with its surroundings; it has walls through which heat can pass. An isolated system cannot exchange energy or matter with, provides further evidence for interactions between these three galaxies.

Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Small_magellanic_cloud.jpg/500px-Small_magellanic_cloud.jpg.