"Surprising Discovery: Stars Found Inside Enigmatic Gas River Flowing into the Milky Way"

Astronomers have discovered stars within the Magellanic Stream, a river of hydrogen gas flowing from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds to the Milky Way. Using the Magellan Baade Telescope and data from the Gaia space telescope, researchers identified 200 stars in the far reaches of our galaxy that matched the chemical composition of the Magellanic Clouds. The discovery will provide insights into the evolution of the dwarf galaxies and the distribution of matter in the Milky Way. The observations also suggest that the stream is falling into the Milky Way, and the increased mass of the stream indicates more gas is being consumed by our galaxy than previously thought.