NASA released this Monday the latest image captured by the James Webb telescope, which brings details of the center of the Milky Way — in particular, the star formation area Sagittarius C (Sgr C), located 300 light-years from the black hole that is at the center of the galaxy, Sagittarius A*.
The image could only be taken using the telescope’s infrared vision, which can capture the light emitted by stars with greater definition.
According to Samuel Crowe, one of the main researchers on the Webb mission, the photo is important because, in addition to showing emissions not yet understood by astronomers, it helps in studies on the origin of stars and, consequently, the entire universe.
“We’ve never had infrared data in this region with the level of resolution and sensitivity that we have with Webb, so we’re seeing a lot of [the Milky Way’s] features for the first time,” says Crowe. “Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the Universe.”
NASA estimates that the new image taken by James Webb shows at least 500,000 stars. Among the bright points that appear, there is a cluster of protostars — which are nothing more than the star still in formation. One of them would have 30 times the mass of the Sun.
James Webb was also able to photograph the emission of a large amount of ionized hydrogen, which appears in a bluish tone at the bottom of the image. For Crowe, this vision is usually the result of protons emitted by large stars that are still young, but the astronomers involved in the project still do not know what each of the points in the image are.
“The center of the galaxy is a full and tumultuous place. It has turbulent and magnetized gas clouds forming stars, which then impact the surrounding gas with their winds, jets and radiation”, points out Rubén Fedriani, astronomer at the Instituto de Astrophysics of Andalucía, Spain. “Webb has provided us with a wealth of data about this extreme environment, and we are just beginning to investigate it.”
