Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Tucana (Tuc)  ·  Contains:  NGC 330  ·  NGC 346  ·  NGC 361  ·  NGC 371  ·  NGC 416
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N66 & NGC346, the Hii regions & Clusters of the SMC in Ha, TWFowler
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N66 & NGC346, the Hii regions & Clusters of the SMC in Ha

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
N66 & NGC346, the Hii regions & Clusters of the SMC in Ha, TWFowler
Powered byPixInsight

N66 & NGC346, the Hii regions & Clusters of the SMC in Ha

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Description

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a companion galaxy of the Milky Way, located about 197,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation of Tucana. The SMC has evolved slowly and preserved many of the characteristics expected of ‘young’ galaxies, and galaxies in the early universe. These include low metallicity, high gas content and a lack of organized rotation.

N66 is the largest Hii region in the SMC. It is excited by radiation from stars in the open cluster NGC346, together forming the largest star formation region in the SMC. NGC346 is extremely young (~3 million years), and its excitation generates an H-alpha luminosity about 60 times brighter than the Orion Nebula in N66.

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