The Milky Way’s central molecular zone (CMZ) spans the innermost 1600 light-years of the galaxy (for comparison, the Sun is 26,600 light-years away from the galactic center) and includes a vast complex of molecular clouds containing about sixty million solar-masses of molecular gas. The gas in these clouds exists under more extreme physical conditions than elsewhere in the galaxy on average, with higher densities and temperatures, more intense pressures, magnetic fields, and turbulence, and higher cosmic-ray abundances and ultraviolet and X-ray radiation...
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