# Stars Gather in 'Downtown' Milky Way

- By: NASA/JPL-Caltech
- Date: 2011-03-18
- Classification: Photograph
- Credit line: Stars Gather in 'Downtown' Milky Way
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stars_Gather_in_%27Downtown%27_Milky_Way.jpg)
- Rights: Free licence, as its Wikimedia Commons page states
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/commons/thumb/e/ea/Stars_Gather_in_%27Downtown%27_Milky_Way.jpg/1920px-Stars_Gather_in_%27Downtown%27_Milky_Way.jpg
- Who can see it: Kids profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The region around the center of our Milky Way galaxy glows colorfully in this new version of an image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

The data were previously released as part of a long, 120-degree view of the plane our galaxy (see http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2680-ssc2008-11a-Spitzer-Finds-Clarity-in-the-Inner-Milky-Way). Now, data from the very center of that picture are being presented at a different contrast to better highlight this jam-packed region. In visible-light pictures, it is all but impossible to see the heart of our galaxy, but infrared light penetrates the shroud of dust giving us this unprecedented view.

In this Spitzer image, the myriad of stars crowding the center of our galaxy creates the blue haze that brightens towards the center of the image. The green features are from carbon-rich dust molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are illuminated by the surrounding starlight as they swirl around the galaxy's core. The yellow-red patches are the thermal glow from warm dust. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dust are associated with bustling hubs of young stars. These materials, mixed with gas, are required for making…