Space & Astronomy

ESA reveals most detailed Milky Way map ever

By T.K. Randall
September 15, 2016 ·  20 comments

The Milky Way appears to be much larger than previously thought. Image Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC The breathtaking and highly detailed 3D map was produced using data from ESA's Gaia space observatory which has been scanning the heavens since its launch back in 2013.

Equipped with a 1 billion-pixel camera capable of measuring the diameter of a single human hair from over 1,000km away, the spacecraft is able to map the galaxy in more detail than ever before.

The new map includes 400 million stars that were previously unknown to science and nearly 20 times as many stars as the previous map created using ESA's Hipparcos satellite in the 1990s."The beautiful map we are publishing today shows the density of stars measured by Gaia across the entire sky, and confirms that it collected superb data during its first year of operations," said Gaia project scientist Timo Prusti.

"Although the current data are preliminary, we wanted to make them available for the astronomical community to use as soon as possible."

A high-resolution version of the new galactic map can be downloaded - here.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (20)

Tags: Milky Way, Galaxy