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March 19, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Something extremely weird is happening to our galactic neighbor. Scientists think they know why<\/p>\n The stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud aren\u2019t behaving the way they should. A cataclysmic collision with another nearby galaxy may be the culprit<\/p>\n By Joseph Howlett edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n Himansh Rathore\/University of Arizona<\/p>\n Astronomers may have finally explained why the Small Magellenic Cloud isn\u2019t spinning like it should. The cause: it\u2019s still reeling from an ancient run-in with its big sister, the Large Magellenic Cloud.<\/p>\n In a new study published on Monday in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers used computers to simulate the two dwarf galaxies\u2019 hundred-million-year-long collision. They charted its impact on the smaller sibling to answer the longstanding question of why its stars aren\u2019t orbiting as fast as they should.<\/p>\n \u201cUnderstanding of the inner structure and dynamical state of the Small Magellanic Cloud is a long-standing struggle in the field,\u201d says Michele De Leo, an astronomer at the University of Bologna. Any study to help explain this, he says, \u201cis a step in the direction of solving the puzzle of complex interactions between galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Galaxies contain hundreds of millions of stars, and are suffused in sparse, ambient clouds of gas and dust as well. For a galaxy with a given size and brightness, the rotation of both the stars and the disk of gas follow a reliable pattern.<\/p>\n Simulated collision between the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud, used in a new study to explain why stars in the former are not rotating.<\/p>\n Himansh Rathore\/University of Arizona<\/p>\n The Small Magellenic Cloud is a conspicuous exception. It\u2019s a small, elongated galaxy that people in the Southern Hemisphere can see regularly in the night sky\u2014twenty degrees from its neighbor, the Large Magellenic Cloud. (They\u2019re named after Ferdinand Magellan, even though it was actually one of his crew who reported them, and he wasn\u2019t the first.)<\/p>\n In the past few decades, astronomers have noticed that the stars in the smaller galaxy aren\u2019t swirling around its center as fast as they should be, especially when compared to the rotation of its disk of gas. To explain this, they\u2019ve floated the idea that we\u2019re looking at the Small Magellenic Cloud after it ripped through the Large one, disrupting its rotation.<\/p>\n To test this, a team of four scientists built a computer simulation of this hypothetical collision. It produced snapshots of the two galaxies before, during, and after the crash, spanning hundreds of millions of years. The violence, they found, left the smaller galaxy in disarray, with its stars and gas rotating far less than before.<\/p>\n The Small Magellenic Cloud is often used as a comparison point for galaxies in the early universe, since it\u2019s poor in heavy metals. So this dramatic update to its cosmic history might lead astronomers to revisit those comparisons.<\/p>\n \u201cThe SMC went through a catastrophic crash that injected a lot of energy into the system,\u201d says Gurtina Besla, an astronomer at Steward Observatory and the study’s senior author. \u201cIt is not a ‘normal’ galaxy by any means.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 19, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Something extremely weird is happening to our galactic neighbor. Scientists think they know why The stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud aren\u2019t behaving the way they should. A cataclysmic collision with another nearby galaxy may be the culprit By Joseph Howlett edited by Claire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3322,1004,7697,17671,384,2174],"class_list":{"0":"post-47109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-extremely","9":"tag-galactic","10":"tag-happening","11":"tag-neighbor","12":"tag-scientists","13":"tag-weird"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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