The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies and satellites of the Milky Way. The LMC is about 163,000 light-years away and the SMC is about 206,000 light-years away, and their close proximity makes them excellent laboratories for the study of galaxies in general. The Clouds ar e the focus of a new research group being formed at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). ...read more read less