Hubble Gallery - NGC 346

Approximately 210,000 ly away is the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. Within that galaxy is a huge area of star formation, at the centre of which is a star cluster designated NGC 346, seen as the numerous white stars near the centre of the image.
These bright young stars in the cluster are pouring out radiation which is eating away at the outer edges of the star forming area, revealing the stellar nurseries to Hubble's sharp-eyed gaze.
This image of NGC 346 and its surrounding star formation region was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in July 2004. Two broadband filters that contribute starlight from visible and near-infrared wavelengths (shown in blue and green, respectively) have been combined with light from the nebulosity that has passed though a narrow-band hydrogen-alpha filter(shown in red).