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"Recent observations of our own Milky Way have increasingly highlighted the importance of filamentary molecular clouds as the primary sites of star formation."

“Recent observations of our own Milky Way have increasingly highlighted the importance of filamentary molecular clouds as the primary sites of star formation,” Tokuda said.

Although these structures are lighter than the molecular clouds with filamentary structures, they are still quite similar in other crucial aspects.

“The environment, such as an adequate supply of heavy elements, is crucial for maintaining a filamentary structure and may play an important role in the formation of planetary systems,” Tokuda said in the study’s accompanying press statement.

The researchers determined that stars can be formed in a diverse range of structures, but that there are “systematic differences in the physical properties of filamentary and non-filamentary clouds. The former tend to have smaller velocity dispersions relative to their column densities and exhibit higher temperatures.”