NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Captures Blooming Stars in Milky Way's Barren Territories

NASA comes out with some amazing images and now, the agency's Spitzer Space Telescope has come up with a few more. The new pictures reveal blooming stars in our Milky Way galaxy's more barren territories, far from its crowded core.

Besides being spectacular, the images do serve a purpose. They're part of the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (Glimpse 360) project. This mission aims to map the celestial topography of our galaxy, giving both scientists and citizens a better view of our universe. In fact, the map will eventually show a full, 360-degree view of the Milky Way plane and will be available later this year.

Our region of the Milky Way galaxy has been relatively well-mapped. Our solar system in particular, which is located in the Orion Spur (which, it turns out, isn't really a spur according to recent research), has been studied and imaged extensively over the years. Yet the region behind this center portion, with its sparse stars and dark skies, is far less charted.

"We sometimes call this flyover country," said Barbara Whitney, an astronomer form the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in a news release. "We are finding all sorts of new star formation in the lesser-known areas at the outer edges of the galaxy."

Currently, researchers are using Spitzer's infrared instruments to capture improved images of these remote stellar lands. In addition, data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) are helping fill in the gaps in the areas that Spitzer missed. The images could allow researchers to see the edges of the galaxy better than ever before. More specifically, researchers are hunting for sites where youthful stars reside. Already, they've spotted an area near Canis Major with 30 or more young stars sprouting jets of material, an early phase in their lives.

It's not only scientists that are benefitting, either. Citizens are also getting involved in mapping the universe. The Glimpse 360 project has already mapped 130 degrees of the sky around the galactic center, and the data is being released to the public. People are encouraged to scour the images for cosmic "bubbles" indicative of hot, massive stars. As the project continues, scientists and the public will learn more about the universe that we all live in.

Want to learn more about this project, see more images and learn how to participate? You can check it out here.