NGC 602 in 60 Seconds

Narrator (April Hobart, CXC): The Small Magellanic Cloud - also known as the SMC - is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers a chance to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies. Chandra has been used to make the first detection of X-ray emission from young, low-mass stars outside our Milky Way galaxy. By "low-mass" we mean with masses similar to our Sun. The Chandra observations of these low-mass stars were made of the region known as the "Wing" of the SMC. In this composite image of the Wing the Chandra data is shown in purple, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope is shown in red, green and blue and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in red. The Wing differs from most areas in the Milky Way by having relatively few metals, that is elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The Chandra results imply that the young, metal-poor stars in NGC 602a make X-rays just like stars with much higher metal content in our galaxy make X-rays.