Hubble Finds Infant Stars in Neighboring Galaxy
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Astronomers
using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered for the
first time a population of embryonic stars in the Small
Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy of our Milky Way.
Hubble's exquisite sharpness plucked out an underlying
population of embryonic stars embedded in the nebula NGC 346
that are still forming from gravitationally collapsing gas
clouds. They have not yet ignited their hydrogen fuel to
sustain nuclear fusion. The smallest of these infant stars
is only half the mass of our Sun.
