As per the the American space agency, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) star-forming region NGC 346 is one of the most dynamic in nearby galaxies and is a dwarf galaxy. It is close to the Milky Way with lower metal concentrations.
Scientists predicted that there would be little dust and it it would be challenging to detect the metals that make up the majority of space dust grains.
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Taking to Twitter, NASA's Hubble wrote, "Stars across the spectrum! These two views of NGC 346 show a dynamic, massive star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. What's going on in NGC 346?"
"A galaxy during cosmic noon wouldn't have one NGC 346 like the Small Magellanic Cloud does; it would have thousands" of star-forming regions like this one. But even if NGC 346 is now the one and only massive cluster furiously forming stars in its galaxy, it offers us a great opportunity to probe conditions that were in place at cosmic noon," wrote principal investigator of the research team -- Margaret Meixner -- in a press release.
Earlier, astronomers have previously detected gas around protostars in NGC 346, however, the telescope's near-infrared observations are the first to detect dust in these discs, reported NDTV.
"We're seeing the building blocks, not only of stars, but also potentially of planets," co-investigator on the research team Guido De Marchi of the European Space Agency said.
"And since the Small Magellanic Cloud has a similar environment to galaxies during cosmic noon, it's possible that rocky planets could have formed earlier in the universe than we might have thought," he added.
