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Superbubbles are cosmic giants, akin to soap bubbles, but instead of soap film, they contain rarefied interstellar gas, and they're inflated not by a breath but by a series of supernova explosions. In computer simulations, they behave like living things: they grow, cool, and move. But until now, we couldn't precisely trace their boundaries.

Enter algorithms trained for object recognition — the same ones that find faces in photos. A 3D program now tracks the bubble at every step of the simulation and draws its exact contour. What we found: the bubble doesn't simply pop or expand. It holds onto scorching-hot gas inside for a long time, while simultaneously mixing with cooler outer layers. This is how the galaxy receives heavy elements, and new stars ignite near the bubble. Surprisingly, a single such bubble can function like a colossal furnace, reprocessing the material of an entire cosmic region.