Using data collected by the European Southern Observatory's VISTA telescope between 2010 and 2014, a team of astronomers has found a disk of quite young stars hidden among old stars near the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is surprising for astronomers as the region is considered to be dominated by mature population.

Astronomers said that they have not seen the complete group of young stars directly. They have come to know about their presence through the detection of a group of very bright and rare stars known as Cepheids.

As per astronomers, they have found 655 Cephids, which 'expand and contract periodically, taking anything from a few days to months to complete a cycle and changing significantly in brightness as they do so'.

Of the 655 Cepheids, 35 were classical Cepheids, which means they were quite young stars. Study's co-author, Dante Minniti of the Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile, said that all the classical Cepheids are less than 100 million years old.

In fact, the youngest Cepheid must not be more than 25 million years old. Dante added that they have not lost the hope to find even younger and brighter Cepheid. Astronomers said that the presence of stars in the galaxy indicates that there is a continuous supply of new forming stars in that region.