A massive middle-age star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud

16 March 2020 Astronomy Now

NGC 339 is a massive star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy in the Local Group some 200,000 light years away from the Milky Way. Studying the brightness and colours of the stars in the cluster, astronomers have determined it’s about 6.5 billion years old, roughly half the age of more common globular clusters. No such massive intermediate-age clusters have been found in the Milky Way, and how they might be related to true globular clusters is not yet known. Several background galaxies are visible in this remarkably detailed image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 339, a massive intermediate-age star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA (acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt)

 

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