00:03This image was recently captured by the Gene Rich Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope.
00:09And what you're seeing is what astronomers are calling a river of stars.
00:13The longest one ever observed by scientists.
00:16These types of phenomena are called stellar streams.
00:18And this particular one is flowing through a cluster of galaxies around 300 million light years away.
00:23And this one is epically long. 1.7 million light years from end to end.
00:28But what makes this one even more exceptional is where it is flowing.
00:32As astronomers say, the galactic cluster in which it resides is extremely wild.
00:36That's because galactic clusters are exactly what they sound like.
00:39Collections of galaxies which all have their own gravitational whims.
00:42Meaning anything in between them, like say a stellar stream, can get ripped apart in the chaos.
00:47Which is why the researchers weren't even looking for one here.
00:49They were actually attempting to observe stellar halos.
00:52So where does a stream like this one come from?
00:54The experts say the chaos of this galactic cluster likely ripped a dwarf galaxy apart.
00:58With its remains becoming the stellar stream.
01:00With the astronomers saying they're lucky they captured it when they did.
01:03Because they don't expect it to last long.
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