Early formation and recent starburst activity in the nuclear disc of the Milky Way

Understand

The nuclear disc is a dense stellar structure at the centre of the Milky Way, with a radius of $\sim$150 pc.

• It has been a place of intense star formation in the past several tens of millions of years but its overall formation history has remained unknown up to now.
• Here we report the first detailed star formation history of this region.
• The bulk of its stars formed at least eight billion years ago.