The James Webb Space Telescope focused on the dense heart of the Milky Way to take this image that captures some never-before-seen features that are yet to be explained by scientists. The star-forming region in the image is called Sagittarius C and is about 300 light-years away from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
There are about 500,000 stars in the image and amidst them are many protostars, or stars that are still forming and gaining mass. These protostars glow like the Sun shining through a cloud. This young cluster houses at its centre a protostar that is over 30 times the mass of our Sun. The protostars are emerging from a cloud so dense that the light from the stars behind it cannot reach the telescope. This makes it appear less crowded when in reality, it is one of the most densely packed areas of the image.
This stunning image of the #milkyway‘s heart was taken by #JWST pic.twitter.com/Ho9z0VRXt3
— IE Science (@iexpressscience) November 22, 2023
The cyan-like parts of the image are the large-scale emissions from ionised hydrogen. This is usually caused by energetic photons being emitted by massive young stars. The immense extent of this region comes as a surprise, according to NASA. Scientists are also looking to examine the needle-like structures in the ionised hydrogen.
