Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer to Earth move towards the northeast, while more distant stars move southwest.

This newly discovered movement pattern exists alongside a northwest-southeast opposing movement that the scientists previously observed in massive stars.

These complex bidirectional movements along two different axes indicate that the SMC is being stretched by multiple external gravitational forces—its larger neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in one direction and another currently unknown mechanism in the other. The findings are published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.