Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: T. Do and A. Ghez (UCLA), and V. Bajaj (STScI)

Hubble's infrared vision pierced the dusty heart of our Milky Way galaxy to reveal more than half a million stars at its core. Except for a few blue, foreground stars, the stars are part of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster, the most massive and densest stellar cluster in our galaxy. Located 27,000 light-years away, this region is so packed with stars, it is equivalent to having a million suns crammed into the volume of space between us and our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away. At the very hub of our galaxy, this star cluster surrounds the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, which is about 4 million times the mass of our sun.

To learn even more about the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster and Hubble, join astronomers and scientists during a live Hubble Hangout discussion at 3pm EDT on Thurs., March 31 at http://hbbl.us/y6k.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2016/news-2016-11

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/