Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Star Formation in NGC 346

 

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Hubble’s High-Resolution Portrait of Star Formation in NGC 346 The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a detailed view of the stellar nursery within NGC 346, a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), located approximately 210,000 light-years from Earth. Embedded within dense molecular clouds, protostars are actively forming via gravitational collapse of gas and dust. These pre-main-sequence objects have accumulated sufficient mass but have not yet initiated sustained hydrogen fusion in their cores. Infrared and ultraviolet observations reveal hot, young O- and B-type stars already emitting intense radiation, ionizing surrounding gas and sculpting the nebula’s intricate filamentary structure. The region hosts over 1,000 low-mass stars and numerous pre-main-sequence candidates, making it a key laboratory for studying star formation in low-metallicity environments. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Nota (STScI/ESA)