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===Small Magellanic Cloud===
===Small Magellanic Cloud===
The '''Small Magellanic Cloud''' is the fourth closest galaxy to our own. In the night sky, it is located in the constellation of [[Tucana]], spanning 3<sup>o</sup> across in the night sky, lying some 20 degrees to the east of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The '''Small Magellanic Cloud''' is the fourth closest galaxy to our own. In the night sky, it is located in the constellation of [[Tucana]], spanning 3° across in the night sky, lying some 20 degrees to the east of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The galaxy itself may perhaps have once a barred spiral galaxy much like our own, before being disrupted by the Milky Way.<ref>http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu//cosmic_classroom/multiwavelength_astronomy/multiwavelength_museum/smc.html</ref> Its diameter is 7,000 light years across, and contains hundreds of million of stars with a total mass of one-fifteenth of that of the [[Milky Way]].
The galaxy itself may perhaps have once a barred spiral galaxy much like our own, before being disrupted by the Milky Way.<ref>http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu//cosmic_classroom/multiwavelength_astronomy/multiwavelength_museum/smc.html</ref> Its diameter is 7,000 light years across, and contains hundreds of million of stars with a total mass of one-fifteenth of that of the [[Milky Way]].
The Small Magellanic Cloud's greatest astronomical contribution is that it's the location where '''Henrietta Swan Leavitt''' first discovered the definite relationship between the variability period and the luminosity of a type of variable star later called [[Cepheid variables]].<ref>http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1908AnHar..60...87L</ref> Today Cepheid variables are used as standard candles for measuring extra-galactic distances.
The Small Magellanic Cloud's greatest astronomical contribution is that it's the location where '''Henrietta Swan Leavitt''' first discovered the definite relationship between the variability period and the luminosity of a type of variable star later called [[Cepheid variable]]s.<ref>Leavitt, H. (1908). 1777 variables in the Magellanic Clouds. ''Annals of Harvard College Observatory'', 60, pp.87-108.3. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1908AnHar..60...87L Online]</ref> Today Cepheid variables are used as standard candles for measuring extra-galactic distances.
==References==
==References==