Description
In the quest to understand how star formation occurs and propagates in the low-metallicity environment of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), we acquired deep F555W (~V) and F814W (~I) Hubble Space Telescope ACS images of the young and massive star-forming region NGC 346. These images and their photometric analysis provide us with a snapshot of the star formation history of the region. We find evidence for star formation extending from ~10Gyr in the past until ~150Myr in the field of the SMC. The youngest stellar population (~3+/-1Myr) is associated with the NGC 346 cluster. It includes a rich component of low-mass pre-main-sequence stars mainly concentrated in a number of subclusters spatially colocated with CO clumps previously detected by Rubio and coworkers. Within our analysis uncertainties, these subclusters appear coeval with each other.
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