Located in the Small Magellanic Cloud at a distance of roughly 200,000 light-years, NGC 346 is a prominent young cluster — roughly 3 million years old — of actively forming stars. It is the brightest and largest star-formation region in this dwarf galaxy. Now, astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected planet-forming ingredients around hundreds of young stars in NGC 346.
NGC 346 is an open star cluster located about 210,000 light-years away in the constellation of Tucana.
It resides in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Also known as ESO 51-10, Kron 39 or Lindsay 60, it was discovered on August 1, 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop.
NGC 346 has a diameter of 150 light-years and a mass of 50,000 solar masses.
Its intriguing shape and rapid star formation rate have puzzled astronomers for years.
“Low-mass stars are the most numerous stellar objects in the Universe,” said Dr. Olivia Jones, an astronomer at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, and colleagues.
“Before Webb, we had limited knowledge of how planetary systems around low-mass stars could form at subsolar metallicities.”
Using infrared imaging from Webb, which can detect thermal radiation emitted from warm dust, the authors observed hundreds of young low-mass stars in NGC 346.
They detected signs of dust orbiting close to the young stars, implying that planets should form as these young stars mature.
“This indicates that the abundance of rock-forming elements in the Small Magellanic Cloud is similar to that of galaxies much further away, at a redshift of about 2 — a period in the history of the Universe about 11 to 12 billion years ago that we call ‘cosmic noon’,” they said.
“Given that planet formation is likely in the Small Magellanic Cloud, we infer that planets may have been able to form during this time period and thereafter.”
The results appear in the journal Nature…
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