The central image of the galaxy through the Hubble lens

The multicolored infrared image of our Milky Way galaxy center shows a new cluster of stars and complex structural details in the ionized gas swirling around the 300 light-year center. This scanned image is an infrared image of the sharpest galaxy center ever obtained. It provides new insights into how massive stars are formed and affect the surrounding environment in the region, often with intense nuclear reactions.

This image combines the sharp picture of the Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared camera and the Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with a color image from a previous survey of the Space Telescope. Spitzer, made with Infrared Astronomical Camera (IRAC). The center of the galaxy is covered in visible light due to dust clouds, but infrared light can penetrate that dust.

The spatial resolution of NICMOS corresponds to 0.025 light years with the distance of the galaxy center being 26,000 light-years. Hubble revealed details of small smaller objects about 20 times the size of our solar system.

The image obtained from NICMOS is the largest airspace ever recorded for an NICMOS observation program. It was combined with a colorful picture of Spitzer to create a composite picture of the nuclear area. The photo shows an area of ​​300 x 115 light-years.Outside the limits of the NICMOS survey, the IRAC exposure (with a resolution of 1/10) can be seen at 3.6 micrometers (blue), 4.5 micrometers (green), 5, 8 micrometers (orange), and 8.0 micrometers (red).

The multi-colored infrared image of our Milky Way galaxy center shows a new cluster of stars and complex structural details in the ionized gas swirling around the 300 light-year center. This scanned image is the infrared image of the sharpest center of the galaxy ever obtained. It provides new insights into how massive stars are formed and affect the surrounding environment in the region, often with intense nuclear reactions. (Photo: NASA, ESA, and QD Wang (Massachusetts University, Amherst))

New data from NICMOS shows light from ionized hydrogen gas as well as from countless stars.Hubble discovered an important star population with strong stellar winds, expressed by excess ionizing gas at an infrared wavelength (1.87 micrometers), when compared to a slightly different wavelength (1.90 micrometer).

NICMOS shows a large number of massive stars distributed in the region. A new finding is that astronomers can now observe massive stars in the Galaxy Center, known as the central cluster, the Arches cluster, and the Quintuplet cluster. These 3 clusters can be viewed easily with the focus of large and bright stars in the image of NICMOS.Distributed stars can form independently, or they originate from clusters that are severely divided by gravitational forces.

Wind and radioactivity from stars form complex structures seen in the center, and in some cases, they may be factors that form a new generation of stars. On the upper left, a large arc of ionized gas is transformed into intriguing sequences of glands, showing the essential role of the influence of strong magnetic fields.

The lower left shows the columns of wind created by the hot stars in the Quintuplet cluster. In the middle of the picture, ionized gas surrounding a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy is limited by a bright spiral wrapped by a tubular nuclear dust path.