Long Invisible Molecular Cloud Discovered Near Our Solar System

For this work, the scientists, who included Andrew Gordon Wilson, an associate professor at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, employed a different approach.

"This is the first-ever molecular cloud discovered by looking for far ultraviolet emission of molecular hydrogen directly," notes Burkhart, also a research scientist at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics. "The data showed glowing hydrogen molecules detected via fluorescence in the far ultraviolet. This cloud is literally glowing in the dark."

"The use of the far ultraviolet fluorescence emission technique could rewrite our understanding of the interstellar medium, uncovering hidden clouds across the galaxy and even out to the furthest detectable limits of cosmic dawn," adds Dharmawardena.

While Eos poses no danger to Earth and the solar system, the proximity of this gas cloud presents a unique opportunity to study the properties of a structure within the interstellar medium, scientists note.

The interstellar medium, made of gas and dust that fills the space between stars within a galaxy, serves as raw material for new star formation.

"When we look through our telescopes, we catch whole solar systems in the act of forming, but we don't know in detail how that happens," Burkhart explains. "Our discovery of Eos is exciting because we can now directly measure how molecular clouds are forming and dissociating, and how a galaxy begins to transform interstellar gas and dust into stars and planets."

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 5,400 times that of the sun. The team used models to show it is expected to evaporate in 6 million years.