Huge gas cloud will hit Milky Way

[Rick]

A giant cloud of hydrogen gas is racing towards a collision with the Milky Way, astronomers have announced.

Dubbed "Smith's Cloud", it may set off spectacular fireworks when it smacks into our galaxy in 20-40 million years.

It contains enough hydrogen to produce a million stars like our Sun, researchers believe.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7184521.stm

[Sue]

I would love to see a computer generated animation of the event. They are available from galaxy formation research groups and I suspect that is how they can describe what will happen in the article, I wonder if they have put in on the web yet or have I missed a link ?

[Rick]

A giant cloud of hydrogen gas dubbed "Smith's Cloud" which contains enough gas to create a million stars like our own sun is on a collision course with the Milky Way, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has announced.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/14/smiths_cloud/

(The hyped-up tabloid-esque version...)