The Stellar Population in the SMC Region N76B

Abstract

The Magellanic Clouds are the nearest major extragalactic objects to the Milky Way. The study of young giants or supergiants in the Clouds enables us to obtain information regarding the birth rates and evolution of young massive stars in those systems, free from biases inherent in similar studies in the Galaxy. Although the Magellanic Clouds have been studied by an extremely large number of research workers at optical wavelengths, it is only recently that significant infrared observations have also been undertaken (e.g., Glass 1979, McGregor and Hyland 1981, Cohen et al. 1982). Cool supergiants in the SMC have been studied optically by Humphreys (1979). She found that most are very metal deficient, and should be classified spectroscopically as M0.