Astronomy Picture of the Day
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.