Despite decades of study, the process of star formation still holds many mysteries. Stars are the source of nearly all the universe’s chemical elements, including carbon and oxygen, so understanding why and how they form — or not — is a crucial initial step in understanding how the universe works and the origins of just about everything, including life on Earth. 

At the heart of our Milky Way galaxy is the star-forming region Sagittarius C, which despite a wealth of raw material does not make as many stars as astronomers would expect. Two new studies have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to investigate star formation in this extreme environment that is relatively near the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way, at 200 light-years distance.

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