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The JWST is taking a break from studying the distant Universe and has trained its infrared eye on the heart of the Milky Way. The world\u2019s most powerful space telescope has uncovered some surprises and generated some stunning images of the Milky Way\u2019s galactic center (GC.) It\u2019s focused on an enormous star-forming region called Sagittarius C (Sgr C). <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Sgr C is about 25,000 light-years from Earth and 300 light-years away from our galaxy\u2019s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*.) This image contains about 500,000 stars. <\/p>\n The cyan area is a massive region of ionized hydrogen, but its size is a bit of a surprise. Typically, hot young stars ionize the hydrogen gas in a situation like this, but this region is so large that young stars can\u2019t really account for it. <\/p>\n The deep black region directly above the ionized hydrogen is an infrared-dark cloud (IDC). It\u2019s a part of the molecular cloud that\u2019s extremely dense and cold. Even though the JWST is extremely powerful and has the capacity to discern faint infrared sources, it can\u2019t see what\u2019s not there. Light from the stars beyond the IDC isn\u2019t reaching the Webb. So even though it appears less densely populated than other parts of the image, the opposite is true. The Webb is mostly seeing stars in the foreground. <\/p>\n IDCs were only discovered about 30 years ago, and their nature is still kind of mysterious. They may be where extremely massive stars are born. Only more research can confirm that.<\/p>\n A cluster of young protostars is emerging from the cloud. They appear as a red clump near the bottom of the IDC. One of the stars in the cluster is a previously unknown protostar that\u2019s greater than 30 times the mass of the Sun. <\/p>\n \n