Abstract The Solar System is located within a low-density cavity known as the Local Bubble1,2,3, which appears to be filled with an X-ray-emitting gas at a temperature of 106 K (ref. 4). Such conditions are too harsh for typical interstellar atoms and molecules to survive2,3. The diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs), the carriers of which remain largely unidentified5, often appear as absorption features in stellar spectra6,7,8 and can be used to trace interstellar gas.
