Our companion galaxies whirl overhead. The large and small Magellanic clouds. They are two of the galaxies visible to the naked eye under dark skies in the Southern hemisphere. The others being Andromeda and our own Milky Way. They are relatively close (less than 200,00 light years, and small by galactic standards. They are not the classical spiral shape that we associate with galaxies, they are known as "irregular dwarf galaxies". Amazingly they probably started out as more classical spirals, but they are being gravitationally disrupted by our own galaxy. Pulled apart one might say. In a couple of billion years they will be subsumed by our own massive milky way.
Ещё видео!