NGC 602: Oyster Star Cluster

Explanation: The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud , a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies this 5 million year old star cluster NGC 602 . Surrounded by its birth shell of gas and dust, star cluster NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image , augmented in a rollover by images in the X-ray by the Chandra Observatory and in the infrared by Spitzer Telescope . Fantastic ridges and swept back gas strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602 's massive young stars have eroded the dust y material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the star cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud , the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp view . The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years -- or more -- beyond NGC 602 .