Using the APEX telescope in Chile, astronomers have completed a comprehensive "map" of the inner areas of the Milky Way galaxy, revealing dense clumps of cosmic dust that could someday become stars. Known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy, or ATLASGAL, the map of the universe was captured using wavelengths of light between infrared and radio waves, a useful part of the spectrum for detecting the dust clouds that billow within the mostly empty space in between planets and stars. It is believed that high concentrations of this dust mark the formation sites of future stars.

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