Small Magellanic Cloud
- noun
- Specialized
:
Pequeña Nube de Magallanes
- During their research, scientists studied various characteristics of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors.
- Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
- Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy
- Large and Small Magellanic Cloud
Examples
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All the stars in, say, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are at roughly equal distances from us.
Academic text (1992) -
Astronomers have found over three billion stars within the Small Magellanic Cloud, making it a point of interest in the night sky.
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So this is the Small Magellanic Cloud, which can be seen only from the Southern Hemisphere.
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But she knew that she was looking at one object called the Small Magellanic Cloud that where all the stars are pretty much the same distance from Earth.
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Observations of gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud revealed the amount of lithium that predictions say would have been produced at the Big Bang, but leave no room for subsequent production of the element.
Blog text (30) -
Notre Dame astrophysicists used the VLT to observe gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud to constrain the cosmic abundance of lithium.
Blog text (30) -
He had just found RR Lyrae variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud with the 72-inch Radcliffe reflector, newly moved to South Africa, and they gave the same distance scale that Baade had reported.
Academic text (2002) -
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a fascinating galaxy that can be observed from the Southern Hemisphere.
Synonyms
1
9.4
One of two small irregular galaxies near the Milky Way visible from the Southern Hemisphere
How Big
- Specialized
1
9.2
- Specialized
525
4.1
- Specialized
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
small + Magellanic + Cloud
The phrase is largely compositional — 'small' + 'Magellanic' (named after Magellan) + 'cloud' signals a smaller member of the Magellanic Clouds — but it is a proper-name technical term for an irregular galaxy. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words may infer a small celestial 'cloud' related to Magellan, yet they are unlikely to deduce the specific scientific sense 'irregular galaxy' or the conventional proper-name status without prior exposure.
Etymology
Small Magellanic Cloud gets its name from the explorer Magellan. One popular story says sailors saw a fuzzy patch of stars like a cloud, so they called these patches the 'Magellanic Clouds', and the smaller one became the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small group of stars near the Milky Way that you can see from the southern sky.