The complex arrangement of gas, dust and star-forming cores
along the plane of our galaxy has been exposed in striking detail. A fresh
video from the Herschel space observatory discloses a group of bright spots, thin
filaments and bubbling nebulae alongside the diffuse background of the
interstellar material. The video was assembled by edging together numerous
hundred hours of Herschel observations and covers a massive portion – almost 40
per cent – of the plane of the Milky Way.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the
portion shown in the video, is the region where most of the stars in the galaxy
form and live. Our disc-like galaxy has an approximate diameter of nearly
100,000 light-years and our solar system exist in it about half way amid the center
and edge. From our point of view, this enormous disc of stars, gas and dust seems
like a circular strip meandering around the sky, mostly called as the Milky Way
in the night sky. Watch this portion of the Milky Way in stunting detail in the
video below:
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