James Webb telescope reveals ‘nursery’ of 500,000 stars in the chaotic heart of the Milky Way

The full view of the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals a 50 light-years-wide portion of the Milky Way’s dense center. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (UVA))

A dazzling new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveals about 500,000 stars, including a dense cluster of newborn giant stars, in what NASA describes as the “extreme cosmic environment” near the core of the Milky Way.

The subject, Sagittarius C, is an active star-forming region about 300 light-years from our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*. The reddish-orange area of the image is a cluster of protostars, while the cyan area is a previously unseen region of ionized hydrogen gas containing needle-like structures that astronomers don’t fully understand. It’s lit by the ultraviolet light from massive young stars. The entire region seen here spans about 50 light-years — about 10 times the distance between the sun and the next-closest star, Proxima Centauri.

Related: Supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is approaching the cosmic speed limit, dragging space-time along with it

Approximate outlines help to define the features in the Sagittarius C region. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (UVA))

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