Distant stars spotted for the first time in the vast Magellanic Stream

For nearly fifty years, astronomers have come up empty-handed in their search for stars within the sprawling structure known as the Magellanic Stream. A colossal ribbon of gas, the Magellanic Stream spans nearly 300 moon diameters across the Southern Hemisphere's sky, trailing behind the Magellanic Cloud galaxies, two of our Milky Way galaxy's closest cosmic neighbors.