The latest image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows part of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features that astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, called Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.
Protostars
Among the roughly 500,000 stars in the image is a cluster of protostars – stars that are still forming and gaining mass, creating streams that glow like a campfire in the middle of a dark infrared cloud. At the center of this young cluster is a previously known massive protostar with a mass 30 times that of our Sun.
The cloud from which the protostars emerge is so dense that the light from the stars behind it cannot reach Webb, making it appear less crowded, although it is actually one of the most densely packed areas of the image.
Smaller infrared dark clouds dotted the image, looking like holes in a star field. This is where future stars form.
Mysterious buildings
Webb’s NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) instrument also captured large-scale ionized hydrogen emission surrounding the lower part of the dark cloud, shown in blue in the image.
This is usually the result of energetic photons being emitted by young massive stars, but the huge area of the region shown by Webb is somewhat surprising and needs further investigation.
Another feature of the region that the scientists plan to investigate further is needle-like structures in the ionized water that seem to be randomly oriented in many directions.
“In the palm of your hand”
The center of the galaxy is quite close, at a distance of 25 thousand light-years from the Earth, which makes it possible to study individual stars using the Webb telescope.
This allows astronomers to gather unprecedented information about how stars form and how this process may depend on the space environment, especially in comparison to other regions of the galaxy. For example, do more massive stars form in the center of the Milky Way, as opposed to the edges of its spiral arms?
