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Quote from source:
ESA’s Herschel infrared space telescope has made an unexpected discovery: a dark hole in space. The hole has provided astronomers with a surprising glimpse into the end of the star-forming process. A cloud of bright reflective gas known to astronomers as NGC 1999 sits next to a black patch of sky. For most of the 20th century, such black patches have been known to be dense clouds of dust and gas that block light from passing through.
When Herschel looked in its direction to study nearby young stars, the cloud continued to look black, which should not be the case. Herschel’s infrared eyes are designed to see into such clouds. Either the cloud was immensely dense or something was very unusual.
Investigating further using ground-based telescopes to confirm the discovery, astronomers found the same phenomena: this patch looks black not because it is a dense pocket of gas but because it is truly empty. Something has blown a hole right through the cloud. “No-one has ever seen a hole like this,” says Tom Megeath, of the University of Toledo, USA. “It’s as surprising as knowing you have worms tunnelling under your lawn, but finding one morning that they have created a huge, yawning pit.”
Stars are born in dense clouds of dust and gas that can now be studied in unprecedented detail with Herschel. Although jets and winds of gas have been seen coming from young stars in the past, it has always been a mystery exactly how a star uses these to blow away its surroundings and emerge from its birth cloud. Now, for the first time, Herschel may be seeing an unexpected step in this process.
Originally posted by gaurdian2012
so does anyone have a picture of the hole? sorry but i'm a "show me" kind of guy.