It is surprising for astronomers as the region is considered to be dominated by mature population.
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A survey using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope – which can cut through the thick dust of the galaxy using infrared – collected images meant to capture these and other variable stars, and the authors of the new study found their bright young things by analyzing several years of the data.
A never-before-seen cluster of young stars have been discovered inside the galaxy Milky Way. The observations were carried on from 2010 to 2014.
The stars in the form of a disc and located near the peanut-shaped bulge in the center of the galaxy.
The researchers will continue to study them in order to discover how exactly they were created and whether the region of the galaxy where they are located, thought to no longer produce new stars, might in fact still have that ability.
Using the observational data from VISTA telescope, the stars are classified as Cepheids, a type of star which brightens and dims periodically and used for measuring the distance of objects Milky Way and beyond. These stars pulses at predictable rate, allowing researchers to calculate cosmic distance accurately.
Of the 655 Cepheids they found in the heart of the Milky Way, 35 were “classical Cepheids”, which are typically young stars, they explain in a report published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Mapping the Cepheids that they discovered, the team traced an entirely new feature in the Milky Way – a thin disc of young stars across the galactic bulge. This makes them juveniles compared to our Sun, which is 4.57 billion years old.
But Cepheids are not all the same – they come in two main classes, one much younger than the other.
The latest discovery of younger stars suggests that Milky Way is still generating stars over at least 100 million years.
Of the 655 Cepheids, 35 were classical Cepheids, which means they were quite young stars. Study’s co-author, Dante Minniti of the Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile, said that all the classical Cepheids are less than 100 million years old.
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At the moment, we don’t really know how or why these stars formed – this is what the team plans to study next. Our solar system moves at an average speed of 515,000 miles per hour.
