Stars and Dust through Baade's Window
Credit & Copyright:
Stephane Guisard
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 age.
Together with interstellar dust,
these
old stars combine to create this
yellowish starscape.
Although the
opaque dust obscures the
true Galactic center in
visible light, there is a low density hole in the
dust on the right of the image.
The region, named
Baade's
Window for the German
astronomer who studied it, is
used to inspect
distant stars and to determine the
internal geometry of the Milky Way.
Baade's Window
lies toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius).