James Webb Telescope Captures Stunning Image of Milky Way's Largest Super Star Cluster

The image of Westerlund 1 reveals a dense collection of massive stars, offering insights into star formation and evolution.

Westerlund 1, located 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Ara, is the largest known super star cluster in the Milky Way.
The cluster contains massive stars, including OB supergiants, Wolf-Rayet stars, and yellow hypergiants, some a million times brighter than the Sun.
Astronomers estimate Westerlund 1 is between 3.5 and 5 million years old, making it a young cluster in cosmic terms.
The James Webb Space Telescope's image was captured using the Near-InfraRed Camera as part of a survey studying star formation and evolution.
Westerlund 1 is expected to produce over 1,500 supernovae within the next 40 million years, providing a unique opportunity to study extreme stellar physics.