Small Magellanic Cloud Contains Infant Stars

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered about 3,000 infant stars, ranging from half the mass of the

Sun to twice the Sun’s mass in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).

 The stars are all about 5 million years old, very young in astronomical terms The SMC, also known as NGC 292, is an irregular galaxy that orbits our Milky Way. It is about 210,000 light-years away, in the constellation Tucana. It contains the same kind of objects as the Milky Way, such as diffuse nebulae, supernova remnants, open clusters, and planetary nebulae. It is best viewed from the southern hemisphere, where it looks like a hazy, detached piece of the Milky Way. The Smaller Magellanic and Larger Magellanic Clouds were named for the explorer Magellan, who saw them in his voyage circumnavigating the Earth.