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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

This 200-light-year-wide structure could be feeding our galaxy's center: 'No one had any idea this cloud existed'

Milky way the Milky Way
An illustration of the Giant Molecular Cloud.

Astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of gas and dust stretching out for a staggering 200 light-years and lurking in a poorly explored region of the Milky Way.

The structure, named the Midpoint cloud, is an example of a Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC). It was discovered by the team using the Green Bank Telescope. Peeling back the layers of the Midpoint cloud, they found dynamic regions including several potential sites of new star formation and dense lanes of dust feeding the heart of our galaxy.

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