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  1. NASA's Webb Explores Largest Star-Forming Cloud in Milky Way

    September 24, 2025Release ID: 2025-141 Missions: Webb

    The galactic center is packed with star-making material — why isn’t it producing more stars? Webb could reveal long-sought answers.

    A wide view of a region of space filled with stars and clumps of orange clouds.

  2. NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation

    April 02, 2025Release ID: 2025-115 Missions: Webb

    Two new research studies explore how a stellar nursery in the heart of the Milky Way is affected by the region’s strong magnetic fields.

    Processed data collected by the MeerKAT radio telescope shows the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, with a graphic pullout highlighting a much smaller region on the right, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared light observations. The MeerKAT image is colored in blue, cyan, and yellow, with a very bright white-yellow center that indicates the location of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Painterly bubbles of various sizes, clouds, and vertical brushstroke-like streaks make up the radio image. The Webb inset shows stars and gas clouds in red, with an arching cloud of bright cyan that contains many straight, needle-like features that appear more crystalline than cloudy.

  3. Webb Reveals Rapid-Fire Light Show From Milky Way's Central Black Hole

    February 18, 2025Release ID: 2025-110 Missions: Webb

    Observations revealed ongoing fireworks featuring short bursts and longer flares.

    A large, black circle representing a black hole occupies the right third of the frame in this illustration. Thick, clumpy orange streaks arc above and below it, essentially surrounding it. The top arc extends down to the lower left and then curves around in front of the black hole to form a disk that is tilted toward the viewer. Near the inner edge of the disk, several bright, whiter spots have blue filaments looping above them, representing flares. The words “Artist’s Concept” appear below the illustration.

  4. NASA's Webb Reveals New Features in Heart of Milky Way

    November 20, 2023Release ID: 2023-148 Missions: Webb

    The play of darkness and light in our galaxy’s crowded core is put on display like never before.

    In a field crowded with stars, a funnel-shaped region of space appears darker than its surroundings with fewer stars. It is wider at the top edge of the image, narrowing towards the bottom. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of the funnel-shaped dark area, forming a rough U shape. The cyan-colored area has needle-like, linear structures and becomes more diffuse in the center of the image. The right side of the image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.

  5. Mini-Jet Found Near Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole

    December 09, 2021Release ID: 2021-062 Missions: Hubble

    Hubble Finds a Smoldering Remnant in a Blast From the Past

    Multiwavelength composite view of Milky Way's center; vertical white fan graphic represents jet's axis from the black hole.

  6. NASA’s Webb Will Join Forces with the Event Horizon Telescope to Reveal the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

    October 27, 2021Release ID: 2021-053 Missions: Webb

    Webb will tackle the challenge of the supermassive black hole’s puzzling flares, which have proved both intriguing and frustrating for astronomers.

    Telescope image with a background of blue, purple, red, yellow, and white clouds, a bright white center, and scattered spots of red and blue.

  7. New Survey Finds that Single Burst of Star Formation Created Milky Way’s Central Bulge

    October 27, 2020Release ID: 2020-56 Missions: STScI

    Result contradicts previous studies suggesting two or more episodes of star formation

    Galactic Bulge

  8. Milky Way’s Center Will Be Revealed by NASA’s Webb Telescope

    October 09, 2019Release ID: 2019-52 Missions: Webb

    Galactic dust hides swarms of stars and black hole’s glowing disk

    The center of our Milky Way galaxy, shown in shades of red, nearly fills the entire image with stars, gas, and dust.

  9. What Does the Milky Way Weigh? Hubble and Gaia Investigate

    March 07, 2019Release ID: 2019-16 Missions: Hubble

    Wayward star clusters are used to weigh our home galaxy.

    Illustration of a blue and pink spiral galaxy in the center, surrounded by white dots of different sizes.

  10. Hubble Probes the Archeology of Our Milky Way's Ancient Hub

    January 11, 2018Release ID: 2018-01 Missions: Hubble

    Swarms of young and older stars yield clues to our galaxy’s formation

    Hubble Probes the Archeology of Our Milky Way's Ancient Hub

  11. Hubble Dates Black Hole's Last Big Meal

    March 09, 2017Release ID: 2017-10 Missions: Hubble

    Energetic event 'burped' billowing plasma bubbles 6 million years ago

    Hubble Dates Black Hole's Last Big Meal

  12. Hubble's Journey to the Center of Our Galaxy

    March 31, 2016Release ID: 2016-11 Missions: Hubble

    Hubble's infrared vision pierced the dusty heart of our Milky Way galaxy to reveal more than half a million stars at its core. Except for a few blue, foreground stars, the stars are part of the Milky Way's nuclear star...

    Hubble's Journey to the Center of Our Galaxy

  13. NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

    November 10, 2009Release ID: 2009-28 Missions: Hubble

    A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609....

    A tapestry in shades of blue, purple, red, yellow, and white titled "Central Region of the Milky Way, NASA's Great Observatories"

  14. Hubble Views Galactic Core in Unprecedented New Detail

    January 05, 2009Release ID: 2009-02 Missions: Hubble

    This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years...

    Hubble Views Galactic Core in Unprecedented New Detail

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