The James Webb Space Telescope and other galactic surveys have confirmed there’s a stellar “fountain of youth” birthing new stars near the Milky Way’s central black hole, where they shouldn’t be able to exist.

Near the galaxy’s supermassive black hole, strong radiation and gravitational forces create extremely inhospitable conditions for new star formation.

However, for decades now, astronomers have seen young stars near the galactic center, defying all their predictions. A particular cluster of young stars, known as IRS13, was discovered over 20 years ago. By combining data from many different telescopes, astronomers confirmed the stars in IRS13 are only about 100,000 years old, cosmic newborns compared to Earth’s sun (4.6 billion years old), let alone the Milky Way itself (13.6 billion years old).