Astronomers at New Jersey’s Rutgers University have identified a giant star-forming cloud astonishingly close to our solar system. The cloud lies about 300 light-years away, making it the nearest of its kind ever found.
It is named “Eos” after the Greek goddess of dawn. It is a cool, dense blob of dust and gas, a type known to often host stellar nurseries, the star-forming regions of interstellar space that contain high concentrations of gas and dust, which serve as the building blocks for the birth of new stars.
However, additional analysis by the team suggests that Eos hasn’t had significant stellar births in recent millennia.
Eos is a crescent-shaped molecular cloud of gas and dust. Though Eos appears only as wide as 40 full moons in the night sky, its actual size is enormous, spanning dozens of light-years across and weighing over 5,000 times the mass of our Sun.
Most molecular clouds hide in darkness. They contain mostly hydrogen, which emits little light when cold. Astronomers usually detect them by spotting carbon monoxide in radio or infrared wavelengths. But Eos has very little carbon monoxide, so it was hidden.
Instead, researchers found Eos by hunting for far-ultraviolet fluorescence from hydrogen molecules. They used data from the Korean satellite STSAT-1’s FIMS-SPEAR spectrograph. This marks the first time a molecular cloud has been discovered by its far-UV glow. In a statement, Professor Blakesley Burkhart of Rutgers University hopes it will open up new possibilities for studying the molecular universe.
Eos lives on the edge of the Local Bubble, a cavity of hot gas surrounding our Sun. It provides a rare chance to study how molecular clouds form and fade close to home. Models show Eos will evaporate in about 6 million years and pose no threat to Earth.
By observing Eos’s UV glow, scientists can directly measure how interstellar gas and dust transform into stars and planets.
The team plans to expand this technique across the galaxy further. A proposed NASA mission, Eos, would map far-UV emission over wider regions. Early JWST(James Webb Space Telescope) observations hint at more distant hydrogen clouds glowing in far-UV light.
Finding Eos is a timely reminder that some of the galaxy’s most important structures still hide in plain sight, and we know very little about them.
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However, additional analysis by the team suggests that Eos hasn’t had significant stellar births in recent millennia.
Eos is a crescent-shaped molecular cloud of gas and dust. Though Eos appears only as wide as 40 full moons in the night sky, its actual size is enormous, spanning dozens of light-years across and weighing over 5,000 times the mass of our Sun.
Why Eos was hidden
Most molecular clouds hide in darkness. They contain mostly hydrogen, which emits little light when cold. Astronomers usually detect them by spotting carbon monoxide in radio or infrared wavelengths. But Eos has very little carbon monoxide, so it was hidden.
Instead, researchers found Eos by hunting for far-ultraviolet fluorescence from hydrogen molecules. They used data from the Korean satellite STSAT-1’s FIMS-SPEAR spectrograph. This marks the first time a molecular cloud has been discovered by its far-UV glow. In a statement, Professor Blakesley Burkhart of Rutgers University hopes it will open up new possibilities for studying the molecular universe.
Why Eos matters
Eos lives on the edge of the Local Bubble, a cavity of hot gas surrounding our Sun. It provides a rare chance to study how molecular clouds form and fade close to home. Models show Eos will evaporate in about 6 million years and pose no threat to Earth.
By observing Eos’s UV glow, scientists can directly measure how interstellar gas and dust transform into stars and planets.
The team plans to expand this technique across the galaxy further. A proposed NASA mission, Eos, would map far-UV emission over wider regions. Early JWST(James Webb Space Telescope) observations hint at more distant hydrogen clouds glowing in far-UV light.
Finding Eos is a timely reminder that some of the galaxy’s most important structures still hide in plain sight, and we know very little about them.
