Shafaqna Science: An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected.
The vast ball of hydrogen, long invisible to scientists, was revealed by looking for its main constituent — molecular hydrogen. The finding marks the first time a molecular cloud has been detected with light emitted in the far-ultraviolet realm of the electromagnetic spectrum and opens the way to further explorations using the approach.
The scientists have named the molecular hydrogen cloud “Eos,” after the Greek goddess of mythology who is the personification of dawn. Their discovery is outlined in a study published in Nature Astronomy.
The crescent-shaped gas cloud is located about 300 light years away from Earth. It sits on the edge of the Local Bubble, a large gas-filled cavity in space that encompasses the solar system. Scientists estimate that Eos is vast in projection on the sky, measuring about 40 moons across the sky, with a mass about 3,400 times that of the sun. The team used models to show it is expected to evaporate in 6 million years.
