报告摘要：In 2020, we reported the discovery of a young (only 30-40 Myr) snake-like structure (dubbed a Stellar “Snake”) in the solar neighborhood from Gaia DR2. The average distance of this structure is about 310 pc from us. Both the length and width are over 200 pc, and the thickness is about 80 pc. The “Snake” has one tail and two dissolving cores, which can be clearly distinguished in 6D phase space. The young age suggests its hierarchical primordial origins rather than dynamical tidal stripping. Two follow-up studies expanded the Snake’s spatial extent by a factor of two, identifying over 10,000 candidate members, and derived its mass function to probe its formation mechanisms. Broadly defined, a Stellar Snake represents a class of hierarchically linked star clusters with extended structure and uniform populations. Recent systematic surveys within 1 kpc of the solar neighborhood have uncovered more than 200 such structures. In this talk, I will present a comprehensive overview of these structures including kinematic properties, and evolutionary pathways. Additionally, I will highlight emerging scientific applications enabled by these structures, including their role as tracers of the substructure and probes of star formation history in our solar neighborhood.

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