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Efforts to unveil the structure of the local interstellar medium and its recent star-formation history have spanned the past 70 years (refs.  1-6 ). Recent studies using precise data from space astrometry missions have revealed nearby, newly formed star clusters with connected origins 7-12 . Nonetheless, mapping young clusters across the entire sky back to their natal regions has been hindered by a lack of clusters with precise radial-velocity data. Here we show that 155 out of 272 (57%) high-quality young clusters 13,14 within 1 kiloparsec of the Sun arise from three distinct spatial volumes. This conclusion is based on the analysis of data from the third Gaia release 15 and other large-scale spectroscopic surveys. At present, dispersed throughout the solar neighbourhood, their past positions more than 30 million years ago reveal that these families of clusters each formed in one of three compact, massive star-forming complexes. One of these families includes all of the young clusters near the Sun-the Taurus and Scorpius-Centaurus star-forming complexes 16,17 . We estimate that more than 200 supernovae were produced from these families and argue that these clustered supernovae produced both the Local Bubble 18 and the largest nearby supershell GSH 238+00+09 (ref.  19 ), both of which are clearly visible in modern three-dimensional dust maps 20-22 ., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Our Sun lies within 300 parsecs of the 2.7-kiloparsecs-long sinusoidal chain of dense gas clouds known as the Radcliffe Wave 1 . The structure's wave-like shape was discovered using three-dimensional dust mapping, but initial kinematic searches for oscillatory motion were inconclusive 2-7 . Here we present evidence that the Radcliffe Wave is oscillating through the Galactic plane while also drifting radially away from the Galactic Centre. We use measurements of line-of-sight velocity 8 for 12 CO and three-dimensional velocities of young stellar clusters to show that the most massive star-forming regions spatially associated with the Radcliffe Wave (including Orion, Cepheus, North America and Cygnus X) move as though they are part of an oscillating wave driven by the gravitational acceleration of the Galactic potential. By treating the Radcliffe Wave as a coherently oscillating structure, we can derive its motion independently of the local Galactic mass distribution, and directly measure local properties of the Galactic potential as well as the Sun's vertical oscillation period. In addition, the measured drift of the Radcliffe Wave radially outwards from the Galactic Centre suggests that the cluster whose supernovae ultimately created today's expanding Local Bubble 9 may have been born in the Radcliffe Wave., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

For decades we have known that the Sun lies within the Local Bubble, a cavity of low-density, high-temperature plasma surrounded by a shell of cold, neutral gas and dust 1-3 . However, the precise shape and extent of this shell 4,5 , the impetus and timescale for its formation 6,7 , and its relationship to nearby star formation 8 have remained uncertain, largely due to low-resolution models of the local interstellar medium. Here we report an analysis of the three-dimensional positions, shapes and motions of dense gas and young stars within 200 pc of the Sun, using new spatial 9-11 and dynamical constraints 12 . We find that nearly all of the star-forming complexes in the solar vicinity lie on the surface of the Local Bubble and that their young stars show outward expansion mainly perpendicular to the bubble's surface. Tracebacks of these young stars' motions support a picture in which the origin of the Local Bubble was a burst of stellar birth and then death (supernovae) taking place near the bubble's centre beginning approximately 14 Myr ago. The expansion of the Local Bubble created by the supernovae swept up the ambient interstellar medium into an extended shell that has now fragmented and collapsed into the most prominent nearby molecular clouds, in turn providing robust observational support for the theory of supernova-driven star formation., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)