The birthplace of stars begins within large, cold clouds of gas and dust, which eventually collapse under the weight of gravity. Molecular clouds are vast cosmic entities that often stretch for hundreds of light-years, and scientists just discovered a massive one lurking in our celestial neighborhood.

Named Eos, the cloud of gas would appear huge in the night sky if visible to the naked eye and could shed light on solar system formation.

An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and