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An interstellar cloud is generally an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. But differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interstellar medium, the matter and radiation that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy.
Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) is a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust that is located about 120 parsecs (390 ly) from the center of the Milky Way.This complex is the largest molecular cloud in the vicinity of the core and one of the largest in the galaxy, spanning a region about 45 parsecs (150 ly) across. [2]
The central cubic parsec around Sagittarius A* contains around 10 million stars. [46] Although most of them are old red giant stars , the Galactic Center is also rich in massive stars . More than 100 OB and Wolf–Rayet stars have been identified there so far. [ 47 ]
The visible shells of circumstellar material were ejected by the central star over thousands of years. One of the richest sources for detecting interstellar molecules is Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2), a giant molecular cloud near the centre of the Milky Way.
Taurus Molecular Cloud. Located about 430 light-years from us, this vast complex of interstellar clouds is where a large amount of stars are being born, and is the closest large region of star formation. Star formation involves the collapse of the densest part of the molecular cloud, fragmenting the collapsed region in smaller clumps.
The Great Rift covers one third of the Milky Way, and is flanked by strips of numerous stars, such as the Cygnus Star Cloud. [2] West of the Cepheus Clouds, the Funnel cloud/Le Gentil 3 and the bordering North America Nebula, the Great Rift starts with the Northern Coalsack at the constellation of Cygnus, where it is known as the Cygnus Rift. [3]
The Central Molecular Zone or CMZ is a region of the Milky Way Galaxy rich in an estimated 60 million solar masses (M ☉) of gas within a complex of giant molecular clouds. [1] It spans the centre of the Milky Way, and as such is in the Sagittarius constellation , between galactic longitude 1.7° and -0.7°, and latitudes -0.2° and +0.2°.
The closest and largest dark nebulae are visible to the naked eye, since they are the least obscured by stars in between Earth and the nebula, and because they have the largest angular size, appearing as dark patches against the brighter background of the Milky Way like the Coalsack Nebula and the Great Rift.