NASA released a unique photo of the Milky Way galaxy

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allows astronomers to study the gas and dust covering the center of the Milky Way, revealing never-before-seen features. The latest observation by the space observatory, the ability to image the universe in infrared light invisible to the human eye, has enabled it to capture never-before-seen details.

Thanks to Webb, the unseen are seen

One of our galaxy’s biggest mysteries is the star-forming region called Sagittarius C, located about 300 light-years away from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. There are an estimated 500,000 stars shining in the image, varying in size and age. Among these is a protostar cluster, or dense masses of dust and gas that are still developing and turning into full-fledged stars. It is also known that there is a huge protostar at the center of the cluster with a mass more than 30 times that of the Sun.

Researchers underline that so far infrared data has not been available at the resolution and sensitivity level obtained with Webb, but now they have the chance to see many new details. The area shown in this image is approximately 50 light-years wide and located approximately 25,000 light-years (1 light-year = 9.46 trillion kilometers) from Earth.

The research team says the galactic center is close enough for JWST to study individual stars. This allows unprecedented information to be collected about how stars may form in this region compared to other parts of the galaxy. Examining the center of the Milky Way with Webb can provide information about how many stars are forming there and whether massive stars are more likely to form near the galactic center rather than in the galaxy’s spiral arms. The research team is also interested in needle-like structures arranged without any order in ionized hydrogen.