The youngest massive star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds

Abstract

High resolution observations with HST have recently allowed us to resolve and study several very tight clusters of newly born massive stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Situated in an extremely rare category of HII regions, being only 5 to 10 arcsecs across and of high excitation and extinction, these stars are just hatching from their natal molecular clouds. Since the SMC is the most metal-poor galaxy observable with very high angular resolution, this work may provide valuable templates for addressing issues of star formation in the very distant metal-poor galaxies of the early Universe.

4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the XVIIth IAP Colloquium, ``Gaseous matter in Galaxies and Intergalactic Space'', Paris France, June 2001