NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a stunning image of the Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud, capturing glowing cosmic dust heated by young massive stars in unprecedented detail. This cloud is a star-forming region located just a few hundred light years from our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole. Surprisingly, Sgr B2 produces 50% of its galactic center’s stars despite having only 10% of the available gas.
The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the James Webb Space Telescope is equipped with both a camera and spectrograph that can observe light in the mid-infrared region. The image shows colorful stars scattered with bright clouds of gas and dust. Further study of these stars will help astronomers better understand the process of star formation, including their masses and ages, which are crucial to unraveling the mystery behind Sgr B2’s high activity level compared to other galactic center regions.
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Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/sagittarius-b2-molecular-cloud