A NASA astronaut captured images of the two galaxies closest to us from aboard the spacecraft. (photo)

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is on his fourth trip to space, is currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS). After transferring to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is docked with the ISS, the astronaut captured stunning photographs of the two closest galaxies to us. The Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud are dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way and serve as its companions, according to Live Science.

The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is not alone in the cosmos. This spiral galaxy, with a diameter of approximately 100,000 light-years, is part of a galaxy cluster known as the Local Group, which includes more than 50 other galaxies. Some of these galaxies are dwarf galaxies, meaning they are significantly smaller and less massive than the Milky Way, and they orbit our galaxy as companions.

The closest dwarf galaxies to us are the Large Magellanic Cloud, located 160,000 light-years away, and the Small Magellanic Cloud, situated 200,000 light-years from Earth.

Both of these galaxies can only be seen from Earth in the Southern Hemisphere or observed from space. This is exactly what NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is 69 years old and has been to orbit four times, did. He arrived at the ISS in September of this year aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, along with two astronauts from Russia. Despite the strained relations between the U.S. and Russia due to the latter's invasion of Ukraine, NASA continues to send its astronauts to orbit on Russian spacecraft. Likewise, Russians arrive at the ISS on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft.

One of these spacecraft is currently docked with the ISS, and after moving there, Pettit took three photographs of space. Two of the images feature the Milky Way's companion galaxies, while the third shows our home galaxy. We cannot see it in its entirety, as we are located inside it. Therefore, the Milky Way appears in images from space, as well as from Earth, as a broad band filled with stars.

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are irregular galaxies, as their shapes do not fit the most common types of galaxies—elliptical and spiral. Nevertheless, these galaxies contain billions of stars, although they are far fewer than those in the Milky Way.

The Large Magellanic Cloud serves as a cosmic laboratory through which astronomers test existing theories about the evolution of galaxies and the universe in general. It was in this galaxy that the last visible supernova explosion to the naked eye was observed in 1987.