NGC 602

NGC 602 is a young, bright open cluster of stars located in the   small Magellanic cloud(SMC), a satellite galaxy to the Milkyway. It is embedded in a Nebula known as N90.

Constellation    -    Hydrus

Declination        -    −73° 33′ 38.13″

Distance             -    196 kly.

NGC 602 contains three main condensations of stars. The central core is NGC 602a, with the compact NGC 602b 100 arc-seconds to the NNW. NGC 602c is a looser grouping 11 arc-minutes to the NE, which includes the WO star AB8.

NGC 602 includes many young O and B stars and young stellar objects, with few evolved stars.

Ionisation in the nebula is dominated by Sk 183, an extremely hot O3 main sequence star visible as the bright isolated star at the centre of the Hubble image.