The Milky Way’s centre is the closest galaxy nucleus and the most extreme environment in the Galaxy. Although its volume is less than 1% of that of the Galactic Disk, up to 10% of all new stars in the Galaxy in the past 100 Myr formed there. It therefore constitutes a perfect laboratory to understand star formation under extreme conditions, similar to those in starburst or high-redshift galaxies. However, the only two known young clusters in the Galactic Centre account for <10% of the expected young stellar mass. We analyse the star formation history of Sagittarius (Sgr) B1, a Galactic Centre region associated with strong H ii emission, and find evidence for the presence of several 10⁵ solar masses of young stars that formed ~10 Myr ago. We also detect the presence of intermediate-age (2–7 Gyr old) stars in Sgr B1 that seem to be rare (or absent) in the inner regions of the nuclear stellar disk, and might indicate inside-out formation. Our results constitute a large step towards a better understanding of star formation at the Galactic Centre, such as the fate of young clusters, and the possibly different initial mass function in this region.

银河系的中心是距离我们最近的星系核，也是银河系中最极端的环境。虽然它的体积还不到银河盘的 1%，但在过去 100 Myr 中，银河系中多达 10% 的新恒星都在那里形成。因此，它构成了一个完美的实验室，可以了解极端条件下的恒星形成，类似于星暴或高红移星系中的恒星形成。然而，银河系中心仅有的两个已知年轻星团占预期年轻恒星质量的不到 10%。我们分析了人马座 (Sgr) B1 的恒星形成历史，这是一个与强 H  ii发射相关的银河中心区域，并找到了存在几个 10 ^5的证据 大约 10 Myr 前形成的太阳质量的年轻恒星。我们还检测到人马座 B1 中存在中年（2-7 Gyr）恒星，这在核恒星盘的内部区域似乎很少见（或不存在），并且可能表明由内而外的形成。我们的研究结果朝着更好地了解银河系中心的恒星形成迈出了一大步，例如年轻星团的命运，以及该区域可能不同的初始质量函数。