Fascinating news from the University of Arizona this month regarding our galactic neighbours. Astronomers have resolved a long-standing mystery regarding the chaotic motion of stars within the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).

For decades, scientists believed the gas within the SMC was rotating cleanly, and were puzzled as to why its stars didn't follow suit. Using new data, they have determined that the SMC actually slammed directly through the disk of the Large Magellanic Cloud a few hundred million years ago. This violent cosmic collision completely shattered the SMC's structure, scattering its stars and creating a misleading optical illusion regarding its gas rotation.

It goes to show that even "textbook" galaxies can have hidden, turbulent histories!

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/JPL-Caltech/STScI

Read the findings in the original paper: A Galactic Transformation—Understanding the SMC’s Structural and Kinematic Disequilibrium