Magellanic Stream

The Magellanic Stream is a high-velocity cloud (HVC) or series of HVCs leading away from the Magellanic Clouds. From Earth, it is a line across the celestial sphere extending an angular distance of 180 degrees. The clouds consist of gas, but a young stellar cluster has been identified within them. The initially-discovered clouds follow the movement of the Magellanic Clouds in their orbit around the Milky Way, but the stream is now observed to extend forward along this trajectory as well. They are presumed to have formed from tidal force on the Magellanic Clouds from the Milky Way, shaped by hydrodynamic forces within the Milky Way galactic halo.