Webb reveals new features in heart of our galaxy in unprecedented detail

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space, has revealed a portion of the dense centre of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

The image, captured using Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument, features an estimated 500,000 stars, amidst which lies a cluster of protostars producing outflows that glow like a bonfire in the middle of an infrared-dark cloud. A massive protostar resides at the heart of this young cluster, which is over 30 times the mass of our Sun. The image also features smaller infrared-dark clouds that look like holes in the starfield. That's where future stars are forming.

"The image from Webb is stunning, and the science we will get from it is even better. Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their nuclear cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the universe," said the observation team's principal investigator Samuel Crowe, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Webb's NIRCam also captured large-scale emissions from ionised hydrogen surrounding the lower side of the dark cloud, represented here in cyan colour. Crowe plans to examine further the intriguing needle-like structures in the ionised hydrogen, which appear oriented chaotically in many directions.

Wish upon 500,000 stars 🌟Take in this magical view of the heart of our home galaxy. Seen by Webb in unprecedented detail, Sagittarius C is a star-forming region about 300 light-years away from the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center: https://t.co/KlGnGSbFl8 pic.twitter.com/YKzUCbECqw

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 20, 2023