A Gigantic Cavity Is Splitting Milky Way Constellations
Astronomers have discovered a giant, 500-light-year-wide cavity between two star-forming regions in the constellations Perseus and Taurus. An ancient supernova could be the culprit.
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TechTranscript
00:00 Some 10 million years ago, a supernova went off, creating an explosion that pushed gas
00:08 and dust around it outwards.
00:11 Remnants of this explosion exist to this day, in the shape of molecular clouds, dense regions
00:18 of gas where stars form.
00:20 New research to measure the shapes and sizes of molecular clouds allowed astronomers to
00:25 detect the empty cavity in space created by the supernova.
00:30 The discovery shows that the Perseus and Taurus molecular clouds in red and blue, and other
00:36 molecular clouds, form from the powerful effects of supernova.
00:40 [Music]