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Zoom Into the Milky Way’s Galactic Bulge – Hubble/Roman Survey Regions

This video shows a zoom into the Milky Way's galactic bulge near the galactic center. As it zooms in, the view changes from the near-infrared 2MASS survey to the VISTA VVV survey (both ground-based). At the conclusion of the zoom, part of the region of the galactic bulge that will be surveyed by Roman's Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey is highlighted with five stacked fields of view. (Roman will also observe a sixth field at the galactic center that is not shown here.)

Prior to Roman's launch, a team of researchers are using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to observe the same regions to enable better analysis of microlensing events detected by Roman. The colored lines representing the Hubble survey area are stylized and represent a large number of individual pointings. The video also labels Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A star"), the black hole at the Milky Way's center.

  • Release Date
    May 11, 2026
  • Science Release
    Hubble Survey Sets Up Roman’s Future Look Near Milky Way’s Center
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Video: NASA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: VISTA, Caltech, Caltech/IPAC, 2MASS, Sean Terry (UMD), Jay Anderson (STScI), Dante Minniti (UNAB), Ignacio Toledo (ALMA), Martin Kornmesser (ESO)

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Related Images & Videos

An observation (labeled u201cVISTA V V V Survey, Near-infrared) of the Milky Wayu2019s center pointing toward its supermassive black hole, which is labeled Sagittarius A* (pronounced u201cA staru201d). At 7 ou2019clock from center is a small region, outlined with 5 fields of view from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope that are stacked together in a horizontal rectangle. This region is about a third of the image in length and a fifth of the image in width. Within that same region are diagonal lines that alternate between orange and blue. A legend at the bottom left shows two Hubble instruments. One of them, marked with an orange diamond, is labeled u201cW F C 3 / U V I S.u201d The other, marked with a blue diamond, is labeled u201cA C S / W F C.u201d The background is a field of stars, gas, and dust that appear grey, except the center third that runs from the left to the right of the frame, which is composed of brown filaments of dust and gas. The tiny region surrounding Sagittarius A star appears orange.

Hubble/Roman Galactic Bulge Survey Region (VISTA VVV Survey)

This VISTA VVV Survey image shows the galactic bulge near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center. A region planned for observation by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is outlined. This area has been observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

A field of stars, which are blue, white, and orange. A small region between the center and the right of the frame is outlined with a square box. Above it is a pullout of the outlined region, labeled u201cOGLE-2013-BLG-0341.u201d The pullout shows two fuzzy red orbs that are very close together, each of which are stars. One of the stars is labeled u201clensu201d, while the other is labeled u201cbackground star.u201d

Microlensing Event at OGLE-2013-BLG-0341 (Hubble Image)

A follow-up observation by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows a region containing a microlensing event captured by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) in 2013. Hubble was able to separate the foreground lens from the background star.

A graphic showing the process of microlensing with three columns indicating different times. Against a star-filled background, a distant yellow background star appears at top of the graphic, while a small red foreground star passes in front of it from left to right in the middle of the graphic. Three panels progress from u201cBefore Lensingu201d to u201cDuring Lensingu201d to u201cAfter Lensing.u201d As the foreground star aligns with the background star in the middle panel, white curved lines show the bending of the background staru2019s light by gravity. Two diverging lines converge again to indicate a magnification of the staru2019s light. Three boxes show the image captured by the Hubble telescope (left) and Roman telescope (middle, right). Underneath these panels is a bell curve (y-axis reads u201cApparent Brightness of the Background Staru201d, x-axis reads u201cTimeu201d). Its lowest points (at left and right) and highest point (middle) connect to the three boxes by a dotted white line.

Microlensing Infographic

This graphic illustrates a microlensing event, which occurs when the light from a distant object warps as a mass, such as a foreground star, precisely aligns in front of that object. This causes the more distant background star to increase in apparent brightness.

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Details

Last Updated
May 11, 2026
Location
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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