HONG KONG: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has for the first time observed a cluster of white dwarfs — the tiny, super-dense remains of burned-out stars — at the centre of the Milky Way.
The telescope’s “cosmic archeological dig,” as NASA calls it, is the most detailed look at the central bulge of the galaxy. Scientists believe it’s the oldest part of the Milky Way. Many of the white dwarfs currently observed once shone brightly about 12 billions years ago.
“It is important to observe the Milky Way’s bulge because it is the only bulge we can study in detail,” said Annalisa Calamida of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.
“The Milky Way’s bulge includes almost a quarter of the galaxy’s stellar mass. Characterizing the properties of the bulge stars can then provide important information to understanding the formation of the entire Milky Way galaxy and that of similar, more distant galaxies.”
