NGC 602: Oyster Star Cluster

NGC 602: Oyster Star Cluster
Image Credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ.Potsdam/L.Oskinova et al;
Optical: Hubble: NASA/STScI; Infrared: Spitzer: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Explanation: The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond.

Near the outskirts of the
Small Magellanic Cloud,
a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant,
lies this 5 million year
old star cluster
NGC 602.

Surrounded by its birth shell of gas and dust, star cluster
NGC 602 is featured in this
stunning Hubble image,
augmented in a rollover by images in the
X-ray by the
Chandra Observatory and in the
infrared by
Spitzer Telescope.

Fantastic ridges and swept
back gas strongly suggest that
energetic radiation and
shock waves from
NGC 602‘s
massive young stars have eroded the
dusty material
and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the star cluster’s center.

At the estimated distance of the
Small Magellanic Cloud, the
featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but
a tantalizing assortment of
background galaxies are also visible in
this sharp view.

The background galaxies are hundreds of
millions of light-years – or more –
beyond NGC 602.