Animation of hot gas being blasted from plane of Milky Way

Exploding stars or supernovas in the Milky Way are thought to be the primary mechanism by which hot gas is blasted from the plane of the galaxy into its halo or corona. The idea that our galaxy is swathed in gas as hot a half-a-million degrees Fahrenheit has been around for about 45 years, but was only recently firmed up with evidence obtained by University of Wisconsin–Madison astronomers using NASA’s new FUSE satellite. (Animation courtesy NASA.)

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