Star-forming region nebula NGC 346

This Hubble image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, identifies three stellar populations in the SMC region of NGC 346 – a total of 70 000 stars. The oldest population is 4500 million years, roughly the age of our Sun.

This image was composed from two individual exposures taken through a V filter (555 nm, shown in blue) and a near-infrared filter (814 nm, shown in red).