<p>This false-color radio image shows the <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/588838/pdf">Smith Cloud</a>, a massive gas cloud that’s zooming around our galaxy’s outskirts. <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-sees-monstrous-cloud-boomerang-back-to-our-galaxy">New observations</a> show that it was flung off the Milky Way 70 million years ago, and will re-collide in 30 million years.</p>
Boomerang
This false-color radio image shows the Smith Cloud, a massive gas cloud that’s zooming around our galaxy’s outskirts. New observations show that it was flung off the Milky Way 70 million years ago, and will re-collide in 30 million years.
- Week's Best Space Pictures
Week’s Best Space Pictures: Black Hole Fires 'Death Star' Ray
A cosmic fender-bender births a new galaxy, and the Curiosity Mars rover takes an elaborate selfie.
Feed your need for heavenly views of the universe with our picks of the week's most awe-inspiring space pictures.
This week, Saturn’s atmosphere reveals its ghostly bands of methane, a massive gas cloud boomerangs back toward the Milky Way galaxy, and satellites capture a lake with two faces.
