Stars and Dust Through Baades Window
Explanation:
Billions of stars light up the direction toward the
center of our Galaxy.
The vast majority of these stars are themselves
billions of years old, rivaling their home
Milky Way Galaxy
in raw age.
These stars are much more faint and red than the occasional young blue stars that
light up most galaxies.
Together with interstellar dust,
these old stars make a yellowish starscape, as
pictured above.
Although the
opaque dust obscures the
true Galactic center in
visible light, a relative hole in the
dust occurs on the right of the image.
This region, named
Baade's Window for an
astronomer who studied it, is
used to inspect
distant stars and to determine the
internal geometry of the Milky Way.
Baade's
Window
occurs toward the
constellation of
Sagittarius.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
