NASA's James Webb revealed 500,000 stars and unexplained features in the heart of the Milky Way

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured a 50-light-years-wide portion of the Milky Way's dense center, a region called Sagittarius C, about 300 light-years from the galaxy's central black hole. Released on November 20, 2023, the image revealed an estimated 500,000 stars, including a cluster of protostars centered on one more than 30 times the mass of the Sun. Webb also captured mysterious needle-like structures in glowing hydrogen gas, oriented in seemingly chaotic directions — a feature astronomers said they planned to study further. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (UVA)