NGC 602

NGC 602 is a bright, young open star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. Scottish astronomer James Dunlop first spotted it on 1 August 1826. The cluster sits inside a nebula called N90.

The intense radiation and shock waves from NGC 602’s stars have blown away much of the lighter gas and dust of N90. This process has triggered fresh star formation along the nebula’s ridges, known as elephant trunks. These even younger stars, still wrapped in dust, are not yet on the main sequence but can be seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light.

Because NGC 602 lies in the wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud, near the Magellanic Bridge, it is relatively isolated. This makes it easier to study, even though its chemical makeup should be similar to the rest of the galaxy.

The cluster has three main groupings. The central core is NGC 602a. About 100 arc-seconds to the north-northwest lies the compact NGC 602b. Farther off, 11 arc-minutes to the northeast, is NGC 602c, a looser assembly that includes the WO star AB8.

NGC 602 contains many young O and B stars and young stellar objects, but few evolved stars. The nebula’s ionization is dominated by Sk 183, an extremely hot O3 main-sequence star that appears as a bright, isolated star at the center of Hubble images.

In 2024, astronomers found a population of candidate brown dwarfs in NGC 602—the first detection of such objects beyond the Milky Way. Several more distant galaxies also appear in the background of Hubble’s images of NGC 602, creating a striking view.