07/24/2025
Seen by the telescope in unprecedented detail, Sagittarius C is a star-forming region about 300 light-years away from the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center.
In this image, a cluster of baby stars glows through the cocoon of a dusty cloud. At the heart of the cluster is a still-forming star over 30 times the mass of our Sun. Wrapping around the dense cloud of dust is a previously unseen region of ionized hydrogen gas (colored cyan). Within are intriguing needle-like structures, chaotically oriented, that scientists hope to study further.
Sagittarius C is only 25,000 light years away from Earth, close enough for Webb to study individual stars. Webb’s data will help astronomers learn more about star formation in an extreme cosmic environment — and along with it, the origin story of our universe.
This set of images shows a field crowded with stars. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of a funnel-shaped region of space that is wider at the top edge of the image and then narrows. This funnel-shaped region appears darker than its surroundings. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. The cyan-colored area has needle-like structures and becomes more diffuse towards the right. The last image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (UVA)
