Zooming into Gas at The Milky Way's Core | ALMA

Zooming into Gas at The Milky Way's Core | ALMA

This video zooms into the complex molecular gas in the center of the Milky Way—a chaotic and extreme environment where stars do not necessarily form in the same way as they do in the outskirts of our galaxy. It is called the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). 

The video combines images taken with telescopes at various times and wavelengths. The clip begins with a wide view of the night sky in visible light, and ends with an image taken at millimeter wavelengths with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Molecules are shown in distinct colors.

Cold molecular gas flows along filaments feeding into clumps of matter that stars can grow from. In the outskirts of the Milky Way we know how this process happens, but within the central region the events are much more extreme. “The CMZ hosts some of the most massive stars known in our galaxy, many of which live fast and die young, ending their lives in powerful supernova explosions, and even hypernovae,” says ACES leader Steve Longmore, a professor of astrophysics at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. With ACES, astronomers hope to better understand how these phenomena influence the birth of stars and whether our theories of star formation hold in extreme environments.

“By studying how stars are born in the CMZ, we can also gain a clearer picture of how galaxies grew and evolved,” Longmore adds. “We believe the region shares many features with galaxies in the early Universe, where stars were forming in chaotic, extreme environments.”

Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/N. Risinger/Digitized Sky Survey 2/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Longmore et al.
Duration: 51 seconds
Release Date: Feb. 25, 2026

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