Candid camera catches Milky Way's bustle

We'll try and keep the superlatives to a minimum but this new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of the middle of the Milky Way offers an extraordinary look at a massive star cluster

While the the core of the Milky Way still remains fairly much a mystery to science - the core of our galaxy is filled with hundreds of thousands of swirling stars that cannot be seen in visible light - astronomers are learning more about the stars (and dust and gas) which form the crowded center of the region. If you're wondering about the colors, stars form the blue, carbon-rich dust molecules are responsible for the green and the yellow-red patches are the result of thermal glow from warm dust.

The span of the area measures some 2,400 light-years horizontally 1,360 light-years vertically. Until humans get close enough for a personal look - and that's not likely anytime soon considering the immense distance involved - Spitzer will remain our prime source of information about the region. According to NASA, the stars are orbiting a massive black hole at the very center of the galaxy.