ears ag▓o.The study, led by The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Crete in Greece, unravelled the mystery when exam▓ining a star-forming cloud called Musca, which appears as a needle in the southern sky.Lead r▓esearcher Dr Aris Tritsis, from ANU, said on Friday the study visualized the 3D shape
of Musca, which lies hundreds of light years aw▓ay from the earth.The large gas cloud, formed mainly▓ of molecular hydrogen and dust, stretches about▓ 27 light years across the plain of the sky,
wit▓h a depth of about 20 light years and width up to a fra
ction of a light year."We were able to reconstruct the 3D structure of a gas cloud in its very early stages of making new stars and planets, which will ultimately take millions of years to form," said Tritsis, from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics."Knowledge ▓of the 3D shape of clouds wi
ll greatly improve our un▓derstanding of these nurseries of stars and the birth of our own solar system."The study, which was part of Tritsis' PhD thesis, has made use of data from the European
Space Agency's Herschel space tel▓escope.He said scientists
could now use Musca as a model to learn how stars and planets were formed."With its 3D shape now determined, Musca can be used a▓s a laboratory for testing star formation, astrochemical and dus
t-formation theories," Tr▓itsis said."We see, for the first t