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Into the Milky Way: Quintuplet Cluster
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This sequence begins with Chandra's X-ray view of a 900 by 400 light year
swath of the center of the Milky Way. It then zooms into a smaller
region where large filamentary structures are seen in radio waves. The
view moves in even closer to show the Quintuplet star cluster. Named
for its five brightest stars at infrared wavelengths, the Quintuplet is
known to be home to hundreds of stars. Several of these are very massive
stars that are rapidly losing gas from their surfaces in high-speed
stellar winds. Collisions from these winds are what astronomers believe
to be the source for the point-like concentrations seen in the Chandra
image.
[Run Time: 0:24]
(Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/NWU/C.Law & F.Zadeh;
IR: NASA/ESO/STScI/D.Figer et al.;
Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/F.Zadeh et al.)
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