Monstrous "smith cloud" boomeranges back to the milky way.
This animation shows the 100 - million - years - long trajectory of the smith cloud as it arcs out of the plane of our milky way galaxy and then returns like a boomerang . Hubble space telescope measurements show that the cloud, because of its chemical composition, came out of a region near the edge of the galaxy's disc of stars 70 million years ago . The cloud is now stretched into the shape of a comet by gravity and gas, pressure . Following a ballistic path, the cloud will fall back into the disc and trigger new star formation 30 million years now .
Comments
Post a Comment