Smith's Cloud is a gigantic gas cloud , millions of times larger than our Sun , rushing towards the Milky Way . The cloud was discovered in 1963 by a student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
The gas cloud consists mainly of hydrogen , has a length of 11,000 light years and a width of 2,500 light years. This is commensurate with the size of a dwarf galaxy . The calculation of the trajectory of this object showed that approximately 70 million years ago it already passed through the disk of our Galaxy. The next passage through the disk of the Milky Way, which is expected in 30 million years, is likely to be the last for the cloud. The cloud is located at a distance of 8000 light years from the Milky Way and approaches our Galaxy at a speed of 240 kilometers per second. When observed from the Earth, the cloud has an angular size of 10 ° –12 ° (if it were visible to the naked eye, it would have a length of more than 20 diameters of the Moon ). The object was named Cloud Smith in honor of Gail Smith ( Eng. Gail Smith ), now named Biger ( Eng. Gail Bieger ), which opened it 45 years ago, when she was a student and studied astronomy .
Cloud Smith in about 30 million years will collide with the Milky Way galaxy near the Perseus Sleeve, about a quarter of the way from the center of our galaxy to the Sun [1] .
Gal. Longitude 40.5408 °
Gal.-latitude -15.1273 °
Distance 45,000 St. years old