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Galactic Center
This infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a population of massive stars and complex structures in the hot ionized gas that swirls around the galactic core.
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Stars in the Galactic Core
These colorful stars reside at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, about 26,000 light-years from Earth. Aging red-giant stars coexist with their more plentiful younger cousins, the smaller, white, Sun-like stars, in this crowded region of our galaxy’s central hub.
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NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery
Scattered within this cavernous nebula, cataloged as NGC 604, are over 200 newly formed hot, massive, stars. At 1,500 light-years across, this expansive cloud of interstellar gas and dust is effectively a giant stellar nursery located some three million light-years distant in the spiral galaxy, M33. The newborn stars irradiate the gas with energetic ultraviolet light stripping electrons from atoms and producing a characteristic nebular glow. The details of the nebula’s structure hold clues to the mysteries of star formation and galaxy evolution.
