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Pistol star, one of our Galaxy's brightest stars

9 September 2003

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Pistol star, one of the Galaxy's brightest stars in Milky Way

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One of the intrinsically brightest stars in our Galaxy appears as the bright white dot in the centre of this image. Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) took the picture, because the star is hidden at the galactic centre, behind obscuring dust. NICMOS' infrared vision penetrated the dust to reveal the star, which is glowing with the radiance of 10 million suns.

Credits: Don F. Figer (UCLA), and NASA

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