The massive stars of NGC 346 are short lived, but very energetic. The star cluster is embedded in the largest star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 210,000 light-years distant. Their winds and radiation sweep out an interstellar cavern in the gas and dust cloud about 200 light-years across, triggering star formation and sculpting the region's dense inner edge. Cataloged as N66, the star forming region also appears to contain a large population of infant stars. A mere 3 to 5 million years old and not yet burning hydrogen in their cores, the infant stars are strewn about the embedded star cluster. In this false-color Hubble Space Telescope image, visible and near-infrared light are seen as blue and green, while light from atomic hydrogen emission is red.?

NGC 346的大質量恒星壽命很短，但能量非常充沛。星團位于小麥哲倫星云中最大的恒星形成區(qū)，距離我們約21萬光年。它們的波和輻射席卷了大約200光年寬的氣體和塵埃云中的一個星際洞穴，觸發(fā)了恒星的形成，并塑造了該區(qū)域稠密的內邊緣。被歸類為N66的恒星形成區(qū)似乎也包含大量的新生恒星。這些新生恒星只有300萬到500萬年的歷史，其核心尚未燃燒氫氣，它們散布在嵌入的星團周圍。在這張哈勃太空望遠鏡的復原彩色圖像中，可見光和近紅外光顯示為藍色和綠色，而氫原子發(fā)射的光顯示為紅色。