Gaia Reconstructs a Side View of our Galaxy

Illustration Credit: ESA, Gaia, DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

Explanation: What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the side? Because we are on the inside, humanity can’t get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESA’s Gaia mission.

The resulting featured illustration shows that just like many other spiral galaxies, our Milky Way has a very thin central disk. Our Sun and all the stars we see at night are in this disk. Although hypothesized before, perhaps more surprising is that the disk appears curved at the outer edges. 

The colors of our Galaxy's warped central band derive mostly from dark dust, bright blue stars, and red emission nebulas. Although data analysis is ongoing, Gaia was deactivated in March after a successful mission.

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