NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took a new infrared picture that can see through clouds of dust and gas, to get a good look at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where the densest collection of stars are located.

The picture shows half a million stars, but astronomers say there are ten million more that are too faint to be seen. The high quality of the image allows astronomers to study the movement of stars and how the star cluster was formed.

The stars are so close together that NASA said it would be like having a million stars between our sun and our closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri.

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Julian Conley listens during opening statements in his trial at Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. The 25-year-old is accused of fatally shooting 8-year-old Secoriea Turner in July 2020. (Abbey Cutrer/AJC)

Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com