Tracking Molecules In the Interstellar Medium

Tracking Molecules In the Interstellar Medium

Stars don’t form out of nothing, but tracking the gas and dust that do eventually form stars is hard. They float around the galaxy at almost absolute zero, emitting essentially no light, and generally making life difficult for astronomers. But, part of how they make life difficult is actually the key to studying them - they have “absorption lines” that detail what kind of material the light is passing through on its way to Earth. A new paper fro…