Astronomy

74 ASTRONOMY • SEPTEMBER 2017

Superstars

of the SMC

Dust clouds pervade the

Small Magellanic Cloud

(SMC), the Milky Way’s

second-largest satellite

galaxy. But this view strips

away most of that dust

to reveal its myriad stars

in unprecedented detail.

Astronomers captured the

SMC at dust-penetrating

infrared wavelengths with

the 4.1-meter Visible and

Infrared Survey Telescope

for Astronomy at Chile’s

Paranal Observatory. The

observations show that

most of the SMC’s stars

formed fairly recently,

with the biggest bursts

coming 5 billion and

1.5 billion years ago. The

SMC lies about 200,000

light-years from Earth,

while the Milky Way star

cluster 47 Tucanae (at

bottom) is only 15,000

light-years away. ESO/VISTA VMC

BREAK

THROUGH