Galactic Center

26,000 light-years (8 kiloparsecs)

This image was composited from Hubble and Spitzer data. The Hubble component was from the HST proposal 11120: Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), S. Stolovy (Caltech), C. Lang (University of Iowa), A. Cotera (SETI Institute), M. Muno (Caltech), M. Morris (University of California, Los Angeles), D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), S. Ramirez (Caltech), and G. Schneider (University of Arizona).

The Spitzer Space Telescope data were courtesy of NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/California Institute of Technology).

NICMOS
IRAC 8.0 microns, 5.8 microns, 4.5 microns, and 3.6 microns

NASA, ESA, Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and S. Stolovy (Caltech)

Red: NICMOS + IRAC 8.0 microns
Orange: IRAC 5.8 microns
Green: IRAC 4.5 microns
Blue: IRAC 3.6 microns