News Astronomy

Clouds in the Milky Way’s plasma bubbles came from the starry disk — and far beyond

The finding suggests that new star-making material may be trapped where it can’t make stars

gamma-ray image of the Milky Way with fermi bubbles in purple and the disk in blue

The Fermi bubbles, shown in purple in this image created from gamma-ray observations, are giant balloons of plasma that extend away from the Milky Way’s starry disk (blue).

Fermi LAT Collaboration, DOE, NASA

By Lisa Grossman

- More than 2 years ago

Huge bubbles of plasma billowing out from the Milky Way’s center might contain scraps from all over the galaxy — and beyond.