A European spacecraft has snapped new images of our Milky Way galaxy, confirming the puzzling presence of a shroud of microwave fog around the galactic core.

The new images come from the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft, which showed the odd microwave haze during a survey that also turned up previously unseen patches of cold gas where new stars are forming.

The energy haze was hinted at by a previous NASA mission, but the Planck measurements confirmed its existence, researchers said.

The microwave light comes from a region surrounding the galactic center, and it looks like a form of energy called synchrotron emission, which is produced when electrons pass through magnetic fields, Davide Pietrobon, another Planck scientist at JPL in Pasadena, Calif., explained in a statement.