How the Milky Way's Wind Tears Apart Clouds
A hair dryer aimed at a block of ice strips vapor and droplets from its surface, and the ice slowly melts. The wind from the center of our Galaxy works in much the same way: it picks up cold gas clouds and carries them away, heating and shredding them along the way.
Astronomers decided to systematically search this flow for molecules, the coldest and densest form of gas, for the first time.