![]() Now, a new analysis of about 10,000 normal Sun-like stars in the bulge reveals that our galaxy's hub is a dynamic environment of stars of various ages zipping around at different speeds, like travelers bustling about a busy airport. However, because the inner Milky Way is such a crowded environment, it has always been a challenge to disentangle stellar motions to probe the bulge in detail. Sahu (STScI)įor many years, astronomers had a simple view of our Milky Way's central hub, or bulge, as a quiescent place composed of old stars, the earliest homesteaders of our galaxy. Clarkson (University of Michigan-Dearborn), and A. The center of our galaxy is about 26,000 light-years away. The observations are part of two Hubble surveys: the Galactic Bulge Treasury Program and the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search. The image is a composite of exposures taken in near-infrared and visible light with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Stars richer in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium have less disordered motions, but are orbiting around the galactic center faster than older stars that are deficient in heavier elements. The researchers found that the motions of bulge stars are different, depending on a star’s chemical composition. ![]() The study reveals that the Milky Way’s bulge is a dynamic environment of variously aged stars zipping around at different speeds, like travelers bustling about a busy airport. Astronomers studied 10,000 of these Sun-like stars in archival Hubble images over a nine-year period to unearth clues to our galaxy’s evolution. Most of the bright blue stars in the image are probably recently formed stars located in the foreground, in the galaxy's disk. Aging red giant stars coexist with their more plentiful younger cousins, the smaller, white, Sun-like stars, in this crowded region of our galaxy’s ancient central hub, or bulge. His Hubble Space Telescope image of a sparkling jewel box full of stars captures the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
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