An article in Science News the other day made me think again about how there have been times when scientists thought a whole field of study may be 'dead', because they knew everything about it! The article was about a massive gas cloud in space that was just discovered and identified - while this sort of thing happens frequently in astronomy, what stands out is it is just 300 light-years from earth. This is like a few doors down the street when it comes to astronomy because this is really close.
This cloud was hiding right in front of our faces, it appears! It has a mass of about 5500 Suns, and its chemical composition just happens to be one that was difficult to detect. Astronomers have peered through that patch of space countless times over the past few centuries, and still there is something right there!
In every field of STEM, this is a reminder we will never discover and understand everything, and there will always be a need for the curious and determined minds of youth to come up and keep the quest for knowledge and understanding and curiosity alive!
