The presented image shows hundreds of thousands of stars in the center of the Milky Way. They are part of the active star formation region Sagittarius C.
The center of the Milky Way is the most active star-forming region in our entire galaxy. However, until recently, astronomers found in it only a small part of the young luminaries that they expected to see. This is due to the fact that the center of our galaxy is hidden by massive dust clouds that block light in the visible range and seriously complicate any observations.
Therefore, scientists turned to infrared astronomy. In the course of the new study, they took photos of the center of the Milky Way using the HAWK-I near-infrared instrument mounted on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Their target was the Sagittarius C region, which is located about 300 light-years from the supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*.
Analysis of the data obtained showed that this Sagittarius C is much richer in young stars than other regions in the galactic center. Now astronomers are planning to conduct a similar survey of other regions in search of other missing young stars of the Milky Way.
Earlier, we said that the black hole in the center of the Milky Way was ready for an eruption.
According to https://www.eso.org
Follow us on Twitter to get the most interesting space news in time
https://twitter.comne/ust_magazine
