Interstellar Tunnels: Hidden Pathways in Our Galactic Home, Part 1 of 2

“Did you know that Earth and our whole solar system are inside this weird bubble in space? For real. But here’s Earth and around us is this pocket of relative emptiness. The blue here shows its edges. We call it our ‘Local Bubble.’” Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) proved that yes, we really are in a kind of void. The study showed that the Sun and Earth are located almost in the center of a giant bubble with a diameter of 1.000 light years, which they called the “Local Bubble.” According to calculations, it began to form about 14 million years ago. For this, it is necessary that about 15 supernovae explode over several million years! At present, the bubble is still expanding at four miles (6.4 kilometers) per second.

For the first time, astronomers revealed that many nearby young stars were born in the star-forming regions near us – the surface of the Local Bubble surrounding the Sun and the planets that orbit it. “It’s really at this edge of the bubble that we actually found some of the most active star-forming regions, including all of the regions you see right here.” On its surface, seven star-formation regions were detected – dense molecular clouds where stars are formed. Therefore, it is possible that there are other stars, even with planets, which, like us, are also in their Local Bubbles. Today, the Sun sits near its center. It is expected to leave after another ten to twenty million years. Aren’t we fortunate to be so close to the birth of new stars today?