Hubble's New Image of a Star Factory in the Small Magellanic Cloud

NGC346 is a young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Clouds with an estimated 2,500 stars. It’s about 200,000 light years away and this image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a beautiful region of star formation. The bright blue stars are many times more massive than the Sun and will live short lives ending in spectacular supernova explosions. The image helps us to understand the stellar formation process in a galaxy that has fewer metals than our own Galaxy.