Hubble-Spitzer colour mosaic of the galactic centre
This composite colour infrared image of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionised gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their environment in the often violent nuclear regions of other galaxies.
Credit:
NASA, ESA and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
About the Image
NASA press release
NASA caption
NASA caption
| Id: | opo0902a |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 5 January 2009, 19:00 |
| Size: | 6149 x 2902 px |
About the Object
| Name: | Milky Way |
| Type: | • Milky Way : Galaxy : Component : Center/Core • Galaxies Images/Videos |
| Distance: | 25000 light years |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Infrared Near-IR |
3.6 μm | Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC |
| Infrared Near-IR |
4.5 μm | Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC |
| Infrared Near-IR |
5.8 μm | Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC |
| Infrared Near-IR |
8.0 μm | Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC |
| Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS |
