Interstellar extinction in the Small Magellanic Cloud Free

IUE observations of three considerably reddened stars located near the core of the Small Magellanic Cloud and of two comparison stars which are also SMC members are presented. This region contains a considerable amount of dust. The UV spectrum of one of the reddened stars (BBB 338) shows the λ 2200 feature characteristic of the Galactic extinction curve. This absorption feature is not obvious in the UV spectra of the other two reddened stars.

Due to lack of a suitable comparison star it has not been possible to measure the UV extinction of BBB 338. The extinction curves derived for the other two reddened SMC members differ from the mean Galactic law in that they exhibit very weak or absent λ 2200 and much higher values of far-UV extinction. These differences are greater than have been found for stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, confirming earlier observations by others.