This composite image of NIRCam and MIRI data reveals the star-forming region known as Digel cloud 2s: a sub-complex of Digel cloud 2. Located 58,000 light-years away from the galactic center, it represents the highest-resolution image of stars forming in the extreme outer galaxy ever acquired. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL))
Almost all of the stars, planets, and interesting physics happens in the inner portions of galaxies. Is that conventional wisdom all wrong?
Bright stars and dust lanes dominate our everyday views of galaxies.
This rotating spiral galaxy, NGC 1512, is located only 30 million light-years away, and is highlighted by a core of old stars, a central ring of hot, star-forming material, and then wispy, thin spiral arms connect it to a more ring-like, star-rich region in the outskirts. This Hubble/JWST composite image showcases the stark differences between what optical telescopes, like Hubble can see, with the network of gas and dust revealed by JWST in infrared light. The overwhelming majority of rich dusty, stellar, and gaseous features are found in the inner portions of galaxies such as this. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team; Animation: E. Siegel)
Supremely interesting features occur, visually, within a galaxy’s innermost regions.
The European Space Agency’s space-based Gaia mission has mapped out the three-dimensional positions and locations of more than one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy: the most of all-time. Looking towards the center of the Milky Way, Gaia reveals dusty, gaseous, and stellar features that are scientifically and visually fascinating. (Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC)
This holds true within our Milky Way, where we observe 27,000 light-years from the center.
Looking away from the galactic center rather than towards it, this unfamiliar view of the MIlky Way comes from the ESA’s Gaia mission. This view spans roughly 120 degrees from left-to-right: roughly double what the human eye can perceive at once. (Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
However, looking away from the galactic center, an unfamiliar view greets us.
Looking towards the region of our galaxy, in the outskirts, where the Digel clouds are located looks, in visible light, like a dark and irregular dust cloud superimposed atop a canopy of stars. In reality, this gas-and-dust-rich region of the Milky Way’s plane is currently forming new stars, even in the galactic outskirts. (Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
