NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) joined forces to capture a striking new view of two open star clusters within the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.
The spectacular 527-megapixel image is the result of 12 overlapping observations in visible light (by Hubble) and infrared light (by JWST). It shows two open clusters, called NGC 460 and NGC 456, which are home to thousands of stars in various stages of development. An 87-megapixel version of the image can be downloaded from NASA.
Star clusters are groups of stars that share an origin, form at roughly the same time and location, and are held loosely together by gravity. The stars in NGC 460 and NGC 456 are no more than 10 million years old — a stark contrast to the sun's 4.5 billion years of age.