Clouds in the Milky Way’s plasma bubbles came from the starry disk — and far beyond

The finding suggests that new star-making material may be trapped where it can’t make stars

gamma-ray image of the Milky Way with fermi bubbles in purple and the disk in blue

The Fermi bubbles, shown in purple in this image created from gamma-ray observations, are giant balloons of plasma that extend away from the Milky Way’s starry disk (blue).

Fermi LAT Collaboration, DOE, NASA

Huge bubbles of plasma billowing out from the Milky Way’s center might contain scraps from all over the galaxy — and beyond.