Hubble Sees a Glittering Jewel in the Small Magellanic Cloud. But the Jewel is Disappearing

As far as we know, nobody lives in our neighbour, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC.) So it’s okay to point our telescope there and gaze at it. The SMC is a dwarf galaxy that’s only 200,000 light-years away. That makes it one of the Milky Way’s nearest galaxies. Since it’s so close, astronomers study it …