Sunny Priyan
NGC 346 is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that lies 200,000 light-years away in the constellation Tucana.
NGC 346, home to over 2,500 newborn stars, features massive stars blazing with intense blue light, sculpting the glowing pink nebula and dark, snakelike clouds.
Hubble’s sensitivity and resolution revealed NGC 346’s stars spiraling toward the cluster’s center, driven by a gas stream fueling star formation in the turbulent cloud.
The hot, massive stars of NGC 346, known as stellar sculptors, carve a bubble within the nebula, dispersing the surrounding gas with intense radiation and stellar winds.
The nebula, named N66, is the brightest example of an H II (pronounced ‘H-two’) region in the Small Magellanic Cloud
H II regions in NGC 346 glow with ultraviolet light from hot, young stars, signaling the cluster's youth as these regions only shine for a few million years, powered by the massive stars within.