Researchers have confirmed a new class of objects within our Milky Way galaxy: survivors called “bulge fossil fragments.” Terzan 5 is the prototype of these remnants of our galaxy's early formation. Billions of years ago, similar primordial clumps spread out and merged to form the Milky Way’s bulge, yet Terzan 5 remained intact until the present day. A new study that combined recent observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and data taken over 12 years from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has definitively shown that Terzan 5 experienced up to four distinct episodes of star formation, confirming that it’s not a true globular cluster. Instead, it is something much odder and rarer.
The release, images and videos are available on:
https://esawebb.org/news/weic2611/
Kind regards,
ESA/Hubble/Webb Information Centre
16 June 2026
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