Central Milky Way stars. Hubble space telescope (HST) view of old, massive stars lying at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Most of the central Milky Way is obscured by dense clouds of dust; this view looks through a small dust-free region. The varying colours of the stars allow researchers to estimate their age and mass. Studies such as this increase the understanding of the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy. This image was taken using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble space telescope, on 21 August 1994.