Space images pierce Milky Way as ISS puncture risk remains
Space images released this week focus on the Central Molecular Zone and its swirling, star-forming gases while the International Space Station continues to face a persistent puncture threat. The ALMA mosaic covers more than 650 light-years of cold gas, and the station must contend with millions of debris fragments traveling at roughly 17, 000 mph.
Space telescope images and CMZ
A telescope in Chile produced a picture released Wednesday that zeros in on a region of cold cosmic gases more than 650 light-years across in the Central Molecular Zone, a region at the core of our Milky Way galaxy rich in dense and intricate gas clouds. The clouds surround the supermassive black hole at the galactic dead center, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9. 7 trillion kilometers). The image is the largest ALMA antenna-network picture ever taken in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth.
How ALMA made the mosaic
The image represents the first time the cold gas of this 650-light-year-wide region has been fully explored in great detail. ALMA is composed of 66 radio antennas across the Atacama Desert regions of northern Chile, and the CMZ is around the size of three full moons in the night sky, meaning ALMA could not image it all at once. The final large-area picture was stitched together from smaller, individual observations as part of the ACES project, the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey.
Molecules and color mapping details
The complex distribution of molecular gas in the Central Molecular Zone is shown with different molecules designated in distinct colors: sulphur monoxide in cyan, silicon monoxide in green, isocyanic acid in red, cyanoacetylene in blue, and carbon monosulphide in magenta. Stars in the foreground of the image were observed at infrared wavelengths using Y, Z and J filters. The ACES team determined the chemical composition of the molecular gas and detected dozens of different molecules, from complex organic molecules like methanol and ethanol to simpler species such as silicon monoxide.
Why researchers say the CMZ matters
Steve Longmore of Liverpool John Moores University, the survey leader, said studying how stars are born in the Central Molecular Zone can help astronomers better understand how galaxies evolved. The CMZ is packed with an intricate network of dense, cold gas that flows along filaments and often collapses into clumps capable of forming stars. The region hosts some of the most massive stars known in our galaxy; many live fast and die young, ending their lives in powerful supernova explosions and even hypernovas. "It's a place of extremes, invisible to our eyes, but now revealed in extraordinary detail, " said Ashley Barnes of the European Southern Observatory. An ALMA astronomer identified only as Kath... — unclear in the provided context.
Debris threat to the ISS
Back in near-Earth operations, the worst thing that could happen to the International Space Station would be a puncture wound. In the vacuum of space, spent rocket stages, splintered satellites and micrometeoroids number in the millions and move at speeds often near 17, 000 mph. They also constantly hit each other in what the context calls a "tsuris of exponential littering. " Most pieces are tiny and many are not anywhere near the altitude of the ISS, but the area is not completely clean. Debris pelts the station all the time; noticeable dents and cracks line the exteriors.
Defenses, odds and emergency steps
There is a layered defense: fabric-y buffers envelope some systems and the Whipple Shield acts as a bumper to blunt impact. That shield is built to stop debris up to about 1 cubic centimeter. The debris tracker and Space Surveillance Network, a bevy of sensors the military uses to track space debris, monitor the area; NASA also watches an unofficial no-fly zone known as the "pizza box. " The tracker is designed to catch pieces 10 cubic centimeters and larger and the system tracks about 45, 000 larger pieces, but all sensors have noise and risk thresholds can miss items. When a piece is predicted to enter the pizza box with at least a 1 in 100, 000 chance of collision, mission controllers order avoidance maneuvers, firing thrusters that move the ISS; that technique has been used dozens of times since the first ISS module launched in 1998.
One NASA estimate puts a 0. 6-centimeter-wide hole at leaving 14 hours to plug a leak, while a 20-centimeter hole leaves less than a minute. Scientists in 2017 from NASA and a Russian space contractor put the odds of this worst-case scenario at 1 in 121. As of late 2025, NASA assessed the risk of debris causing a depressurization event in any six-month period as somewhere between 1 in 36 and 1 in 170. In 2025, Chinese astronauts were briefly stranded at their station after debris hit their return vehicle.
If astronauts or cosmonauts have time after a breach, they will try to plug the leak or close the hatch to the leaking section of the station; that is how they dealt with a minor leak in the station's PrK module for a number of years and it basically worked. But once pressure falls to around 490 mm Hg, critical systems risk breaking down and crew can suffer hypoxia, oxygen deprivation so debilitating they could become delirious. If nothing else can be done, the crew would need to go to their crew vehicles and leave the ISS. Other emergencies that could lead to the same outcome include a fire from machinery shorting or a toxic ammonia leak, though those are described as even more unlikely.
Rolling out this week are journalistic commissions on technological decommissions — from broken-down electric cars to falling-down space stations — that place the new Milky Way imagery and the ISS's vulnerability side by side in the week's coverage originating from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
These developments highlight two very different arenas of astronomical work: mapping the turbulent heart of our galaxy in chemical detail, and managing the constant risk posed by human-made debris to orbital habitats and their crews.
