June 4, 2009--By revealing the normally dust-obscured Arches Cluster of stars in near-infrared light, the European Space Organisation's Chile-based Very Large Telescope uncovered something surprising about this crowded, violent nook at the center of our galaxy: It's normal.

Pushed and pulled by a nearby black hole, turbulent gases, and the power of the stars themselves, the relatively young cluster--the densest in the Milky Way--has long been imagined as a place where stars form differently than in the quieter corners of our galaxy. But the telescope's sharp new views show high- and low-mass stars in excitingly average ratios.