A Cold Ribbon Where Future Stars Are Born

The Universe lights up when you look at it with different eyes. And, in a very real sense, I mean that literally. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is more than just a few hundred billion stars. It's also loaded with gas and dust, the raw materials from which stars are made. And stars are being made: roughly two to four times the Sun's mass worth of stars are born every year in our galaxy. Usually that means lots of little stars like red dwarfs, but sometimes it means a truly massive star dozens of tim...