This stunning artist’s animation of the Milky Way is based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. Gaia has completely reshaped our understanding of our home galaxy—revealing unexpected details about its spiral arms, central bar, and overall structure.
We can’t take a selfie of the Milky Way, but thanks to Gaia, we’re seeing it clearer than ever! And with more data releases on the way, our view will only get sharper.
Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar
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This is a new artist’s animation of our galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope.
Gaia has changed our impression of the Milky Way. Even seemingly simple ideas about the nature of our galaxy’s central bar and the spiral arms have been overturned. Gaia has shown us that it has more than two spiral arms and that they are less prominent than we previously thought. In addition, Gaia has shown that its central bar is more inclined with respect to the Sun.
No spacecraft can travel beyond our galaxy, so we can’t take a selfie, but Gaia is giving us the best insight yet of what our home galaxy looks like. Once all of Gaia’s observations collected over the past decade are made available in two upcoming data releases, we can expect an even sharper view of the Milky Way.
Click here to download the still image of the Milky Way: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/New_Gaia_release_reveals_rare_lenses_cluster_cores_and_unforeseen_science
Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar
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