Click on the image for higher resolution (4.7 MB)
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has observed the central part of the Milky Way with spectacular resolution and uncovered new details about the history of star birth in our galaxy. Thanks to the new observations, astronomers have found evidence for a dramatic event in the life of the Milky Way: a burst of star formation so intense that it resulted in over a hundred thousand supernova explosions.
Taken with the HAWK-I instrument on VLT, this stunning image shows the Milky Way's central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. This means the level of detail picked up by HAWK-I is roughly equivalent to seeing a football (soccer ball) in Zurich from Munich, where ESO's headquarters are located!
The image combines observations in three different wavelength bands. The team used the broadband filters J (centred at 1250 nanometers, in blue), H (centred at 1635 nanometres, in green), and Ks (centred at 2150 nanometers, in red), to cover the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. By observing in this range of wavelengths, HAWK-I can peer through the dust, allowing it to see certain stars in the central region of our galaxy that would otherwise be hidden.
Image Credit: ESO/Nogueras-Lara et al.
Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure
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