Using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have taken the closest and clearest look yet at one of the most extreme places in our galaxy—a star-forming region called Sagittarius C.
Located about 200 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, this region is filled with thick clouds of gas and dust and is known for producing thousands of stars.
But this new research is revealing just how different and mysterious it truly is.
Sagittarius C lies in what astronomers call the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), an area near the center of our galaxy packed with gas.
Surprisingly, despite having lots of material for star formation, this zone produces fewer stars than expected. The new observations from Webb may help explain why.
A team of scientists led by University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist John Bally and undergraduate student Samuel Crowe from the University of Virginia discovered that Sagittarius C is filled with long, glowing threads of hot gas—some of them several light-years long.
These filaments, made of plasma, look like strands of spaghetti and are likely formed by strong magnetic fields stretching through the region.
These magnetic fields might be the reason star formation in the area is slower than predicted. Normally, dense gas in space can collapse under gravity to form stars.
But strong magnetic fields can act like tension bands, holding the gas in place and preventing it from collapsing. This could explain why there’s less star-making activity in such a gas-rich region.
The Webb telescope’s images of Sagittarius C are unlike anything seen before. Crowe, who led the observation campaign and was recently named a Rhodes Scholar, said the region has a completely different shape compared to other star-forming areas farther from the center of the galaxy.
Instead of looking smooth like the Orion Nebula, Sagittarius C appears tangled and chaotic.
In addition to the magnetic filaments, the researchers also studied young stars forming in Sagittarius C. These stars, known as protostars, are in the early stages of life and are already affecting their surroundings.
As they grow, they emit intense radiation that blows away the gas and dust around them. This process can actually end the star-forming cycle by removing the material needed to form new stars.
Bally explained that even our own Sun probably formed in a large cluster like this, but over billions of years, the sibling stars have drifted away. Sagittarius C offers a rare chance to study a similar cluster in its active phase—though it may not last much longer. The stars already formed in the region are pushing away the remaining gas, and in a few hundred thousand years, the nursery could disappear.
The study also found that Sagittarius C’s unusual features are likely caused by the motion of gas around the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This movement twists and strengthens the magnetic fields, which in turn shape the gas and plasma in the region.
While scientists have long believed the galaxy’s center is an important place for star formation, this research shows that magnetic forces could be slowing the process down more than expected.
Sagittarius C is giving researchers new insight into how stars are born—and why some regions shine brighter than others in our cosmic neighborhood.
