CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronomers have discovered a titanic wave of star-forming gases practically right under our noses in the Milky Way.
Harvard University scientists reported Tuesday that this massive structure has been hiding out in the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arm closest to Earth.
The researchers were building a 3D map of our galaxy’s interstellar matter, using a star census gathered by Europe’s Gaia spacecraft when they spotted the wave-shaped structure.
It’s an astounding 50 quadrillion miles long and is home to tens of thousands of baby stars, with the potential for countless more stellar births, according to the paper published in the journal Nature.
All these stellar nurseries, or star-forming blobs of gas, are interconnected, according to Harvard’s Catherine Zucker. Together, they form this wavy, gassy filament.
The sun is just 500 light years away from the wave at its closest point, according to lead author Joao Alves.
The team was shocked by the discovery. No one expected “we live next to a giant, wave-like collection of gas — or that it forms the local arm of the Milky Way,” Harvard’s Alyssa Goodman said in a statement.
What’s more, the structure dubbed Radcliffe Wave — after a Harvard institute — contains stellar nurseries once thought to belong in a ring-shaped band around the sun. The wave contains gases equivalent to 3 million times the mass of the sun.
