Could this be the birthplace of our next neighboring star? Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory have discovered a way to look inside the impenetrable "giant complexes of cold gas and dust" in interstellar space, by using the scattered near-infrared light, or "cloudshine." There interstellar clouds are the nurseries of future stars, so it's incredibly valuable to be able to understand where and when new stars will appear. But the dust in the clouds blocks all visible light spectrums, so you can only see through them indirectly. Until now, the only way to examine the distribution of matter within the clouds was to measure the light form the stars behind them. [ESO]

Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at .