L. Viktor Toth

Long before a star ignites in a gas cloud, chemical life is already bustling. In cold, dense clumps of gas, called starless cores, atoms stick together to form molecules, both simple and complex. To peer into this invisible kitchen, astronomers aimed a 40-meter radio telescope in Yebes at 23 such clouds in the Orion Nebula.

The night sky looks as smooth as the surface of a calm lake. But if you look at gamma-ray bursts (brief, blinding explosions visible across the entire universe) you'll find ripples in that smoothness. Scientists took a catalog of such bursts and divided the sky into two hemispheres. In the southern one, they found a tiny group: 4–5 bursts huddled together.