At a distance of about 200,000 light-years, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the Milky Way's nearest neighbors. It is also one of the most distant objects that can be seen with the naked eye. Located in the constellation of Tucana, it appears as a hazy, light patch in the night sky about 3 degrees across. It looks like a detached piece of the Milky Way. SMC is a dwarf irregular galaxy, which has a diameter of about 7,000 light-years and contains several hundred million stars. The total mass of SMC is approximately 7 billion times the mass of the Sun. Some astronomers speculate that the SMC was once a barred spiral galaxy that was disrupted by the Milky Way to become somewhat irregular. It contains a central bar structure.
This eight panel mosaic showsalmost the entire SMC. Several star clusters and H II regions could be seen on the image. For reference, please chech the annotated map (mouseover). More detailed image of the central part of the SMC can be found here .