Webb telescope captures outskirts of Milky Way in 'unprecedented' detail: See photo

• 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.

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.

Shown in unprecedented resolution, Webb's imagery has enabled scientists to better study star formation in the outer Milky Way, astronomer Natsuko Izumi, who led a study with the latest findings, said in a statement.

"We can get very powerful and impressive images of these clouds with Webb," said Izumi, an astronomer at Gifu University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. "I did not expect to see such active star formation and spectacular jets.”

James Webb image shows protostars, jets

The researchers used Webb’s state-of-the-art Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument(MIRI) to image select regions within two molecular clouds.

The resulting visual, compiled from those sections of the outer galaxy, depict young protostars, which are so early in their stellar evolution that they are still gathering mass from parent molecular clouds. Also visible in the image are outflows of superheated gas called "plasma," as well as nebular structures.

“What was fascinating and astounding to me from the Webb data is that there are multiple jets shooting out in all different directions from this cluster of stars," said scientist Mike Ressler of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who led observations. "It’s a little bit like a firecracker, where you see things shooting this way and that."

Researchers hope to study 'extreme outer galaxy' more

Star formation is a complex process that has long held a degree of mystery for astronomers.

While Webb's latest data provides more context to help astronomers piece together some answers, the imagery only "skims the surface," the researchers said. The researchers said they intend to further study the extreme outer galaxy for more clues to explain, for instance, why stars of various sizes are found in relative abundance in the region's star clusters.

“I’m interested in continuing to study how star formation is occurring in these regions," Izumi said. "By combining data from different observatories and telescopes, we can examine each stage in the evolution process."

The team's research was published in August in the Astronomical Journal.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com