SMC in Gravitational Trouble: New Study Shows It’s Being Torn Apart by Its Big Neighbor

A decade of VISTA survey data reveals the Small Magellanic Cloud is being stretched and dragged apart by the gravitational pull of the Large Magellanic Cloud, with most SMC stars moving outward at about 38,000 mph (61,000 km/h). The findings argue the SMC isn’t a stable rotating disk but is undergoing tidal disruption due to repeated LMC encounters, potentially tearing the dwarf galaxy in two long before the Milky Way–SMC–LMC collision in ~2.4 billion years. The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, highlights the dynamic nature of Milky Way satellites and will be further explored with the One Thousand and One Magellanic Fields survey.