2006/02/09 by A. Nota, M. Sirianni, E. Sabbi +14 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/503301
published as Astrophys.J. 640 (2006) L29-L34 · 8 pages, 4 figures. To be appear on ApJL (accepted)
arxiv created 2006/02/09 · openalex publication_date 2006/03/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We report the discovery of a rich population of low-mass stars in the young, massive NGC 346 star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud from deep V , I , and Hα images taken with the Hu bble Spac e T elescope Advanced Camera for Surveys. These stars have likely formed together with the NGC 346 cluster, ≃3-5 Myr ago. Their magnitudes and colors are those of pre-main-sequence stars in the mass range 0.6-3 M ☉ , mostly concentrated in the main cluster, but with secondary subclusters spread over a region across ~45 pc. These subclusters appear to be spatially coincident with previously known knots of molecular gas identified in ground-based and In frared Spac e Obse r vato r y observations. We show that NGC 346 is a complex region, being shaped by its massive stars, and the observations presented here represent a key step toward the understanding of how star formation occurred and has progressed in this low-metallicity environment.