News Astronomy

A gas cloud 5,500 times as massive as the sun lurks nearby

Dubbed Eos, this giant cloud of molecular hydrogen has been hiding in plain sight

A cloud in space with wisps of green, blue, purple and reddish gas swirling around a dark, jagged core, set against a star-filled background with a glowing yellow star at the lower right.

A giant interstellar cloud dubbed Eos (illustrated, green) lurks just 300 light-years from our solar system. Its chemical composition kept it hiding in plain sight until now.

Matt Twombly/Simons Foundation

By Mara Johnson-Groh

Astronomers have found a giant interstellar cloud surprisingly close to Earth.

Lurking about 300 light-years from our solar system, this immense cloud of gas and dust is the closest of its kind ever found to Earth, beating the previous record holder by roughly 90 light-years. Despite being some 5,500 times as massive as the sun, the cloud went unnoticed — until now.

That’s because the cloud does not contain much carbon monoxide, the molecule astronomers often use to probe these clouds, called molecular clouds.