James Webb Space Telescope observes edge of Milky Way: See photo | Space

• The stunning image that Webb produced shows newly formed stars in the outer galaxy emitting jets of material in all directions, set against a backdrop of a sea of galaxies and red clouds of gas.
• Webb’s imagery has enabled scientists to better study star formation in the outer Milky Way.

The James Webb Space Telescope has spent three years observing remote galaxies, black holes and distant planets, but its latest discovery was a little bit closer to home.

A team of NASA astronomers recently pointed the spacefaring telescope toward the outskirts of our own Milky Way galaxy to get a glimpse of some dense cosmic clouds home to star clusters undergoing star formation.

The region that attracted the researchers’ attention is one referred to as “the extreme outer galaxy” – and that’s not an exaggeration. While Earth is located about 26,000 light-years from what’s known as the galactic center, the outer portions of the Milky Way are even further, at about 58,000 light-years from our galaxy’s central region.