Where Tomorrow's Stars Will Be Born

[mickw]

Astronomers love their sky maps, and this latest is a doozie. It reveals thousands of previously undiscovered knots of cold cosmic dust, each a potential star waiting to be born.

The new atlas of dust covers the inner regions of our Milky Way Galaxy, where stars, gas and dust are all packed tightly together, where chaos reigns, where massive stars are born.

It's so dusty in there that optical telescopes can't see anything.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090706-mm-galactic-dust.html