What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since
visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light, though, such as
radio, the galactic center can be imaged and shows itself to be quite an
interesting and active place. The
featured picture shows an image of our Milky Way's center by the
MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes in
South Africa. Spanning four times the angular size of
the Moon (2
degrees), the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed. Many known sources are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix of Sgr, since the
galactic center is in the direction of the
constellation Sagittarius. In our galaxy's center lies
Sgr A, found here in the image center, which houses the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Other sources in the image are not as well understood, including the Arc, just to the left of Sgr A, and numerous filamentary threads. The
inset image shows a small patch recently imaged in
infrared light with the
James Webb Space Telescope to
investigate the effects of magnetic fields on star formation.