Hubble Telescope Locates Mysterious Source of Magellanic Stream

An enormous stream of gas, known as the Magellanic Stream, spans much of the Milky Way. But until recently, the cause of this phenomenon has remained unknown.

A team of astronomers led by Andrew J. Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to pinpoint the primary source of the stream as the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, which are dwarf galaxies locked into orbits around our home galaxy. (This origin theory has been the leading thesis since the '70s, though this is the first confirmation.)