The vibrant
panorama of the centre of the Milky Way galaxy has revealed a cast
of neutron stars, dwarf stars and small black holes clustered around
one massive black hole.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory took the series of 30 pictures that
combined to give the galactic mosaic.
X-rays have revealed bursts of green and red and small pinpoints
of blue at the centre of our galaxy which covers an area about 400
light years by 900 light years.
A light-year is about 9.6 trillion kilometres.
The astral objects are shrouded in a dense fog of
multi-million-degree gas, and the glare of millions of stars.
Scientists described the Milky Way galaxy, as a sprawling
megalopolis.
"The centre of the galaxy is where the action is," said
astronomer Daniel Wang, of the University of Massachusetts.
The solar system, home to Earth and the sun, is about halfway out
on one of the Milky Way's spiral arms. It is about 25,000 light
years from the centre.
"With these images we get a new perspective of the interplay
between stars, gas and dust as well as the magnetic fields and
gravity in the region," Mr Wang said.
"We all know we live in the Milky Way, which is a big city of
stars. As for the centre of the city, what happens there matters for
the evolution of our galaxy."
It used to be difficult for astronomers to study the galactic
centre because space dust and gas blocked the view. But the
high-resolution Chandra cleared the view, capturing more than 1000
X-ray sources. Earlier X-ray telescopes detected about a dozen.
Analysis of the X-rays revealed the galactic centre has hundreds
of white dwarf stars, which are hot, faint stars.
The middle of the Milky Way also features many stellar black
holes, stars that have collapsed into a point of such density that
not even light can escape.
Mr Wang said the Milky Way centre was in a constant state of star
formation and destruction.
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