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After decades of searching, scientists have found stars accompanying the gas streaming from two smaller galaxies that orbit our Milky Way.

Our galaxy is so big that astronomers are still exploring its stellar backwaters. Now, new observations have enabled them to map a previously uncharted structure in the Milky Way.

Scientists have found 13 stars that they believe are associated with the Magellanic Stream — a giant ribbon of gas stretching over three-quarters of the way across the sky. The researchers presented their findings on the arXiv astronomy preprint server in June.