The Communications Center: Breaking Science News • HUBBLE: Spectacular UV view of NGC 346

NGC 346 is nestled within the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our Milky Way.NASA, ESA, and C. Murray (Space Telescope Science Institute); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

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Nested within the SMC is this spectacular star cluster, known as NGC 346. Its hot stars unleash a torrent of radiation and energetic outflows, which erode the denser portions of gas and dust in the surrounding nebula, N66. Dozens of hot, blue, and high-mass stars shine within NGC 346, and astronomers believe this cluster contains more than half of the known high-mass stars in the whole SMC.
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Hubble – with its combined sharp resolution and position above our UV-blocking atmosphere – is the only telescope with the ability to make sensitive, ultraviolet observations.
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These specific observations were gathered to learn more about how star formation shapes the interstellar medium, which is the gas distributed throughout seemingly empty space, in a low-metallicity galaxy like the SMC.

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Statistics: Posted by AVAO — Thu Aug 29, 2024 9:28 pm — Replies 0 — Views 78