The star formation region NGC 346, located in the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy, is the image highlighted by NASA this Friday (13). It is about 210,000 light-years away from us and is made up of short-lived but extremely energetic stars.
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Considered one of the most dynamic star-forming regions in galaxies close to us, this “stellar factory” was an enigma to astronomers. Now, new observations from the James Webb Telescope have helped scientists understand it better.
See below the NGC 346 region, as observed by the James Webb Telescope:
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Astronomers decided to study it because of the conditions and amount of metals in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which resemble what was found in galaxies billions of years ago during the so-called “cosmic dawn”.
At that time, between 2 and 3 billion years ago, star formation was in full swing: galaxies formed stars at an intense pace, and this process helped to sculpt the galaxies that astronomers observe today.
The star formation region NGC 346
This star nursery is an open stellar cluster associated with a nebula, which spans about 200 light-years and can be found amidst the star clusters and nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way visible to the naked eye, located approximately 210,000 light years from us.
Inside the nebula NGC 326, there are “baby” stars forming from the gravitational collapse of gas clouds; the smallest of them has half the mass of the Sun, and they still don’t use hydrogen as fuel for the nuclear fusion that will sustain their structures. The nebula alone is home to more than 2,500 young stars.
Dwarf galaxies, such as the Small Magellanic Cloud, are considered the building blocks of larger galaxies, and are like laboratories for astronomers to understand the stars of the early universe.
Read the article on Canaltech.
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