"Reassessing Our Understanding of a Small Galaxy Orbiting the Milky Way"

Astronomers have discovered that the Small Magellanic Cloud, previously thought to be a single galaxy orbiting the Milky Way, is actually two separate galaxies superimposed along our line of sight. New analysis suggests that the rearmost blob of stars is located some 16,000 light-years behind the other. This finding challenges previous interpretations and has been supported by data from the Gaia survey and a galactic survey using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder radio telescope. The Small Magellanic Cloud, along with its larger sibling, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is slowly being subsumed into the Milky Way, providing a front row seat to the process of galactic growth.