3D map of Milky Way sheds light on workings of galaxy – RTE.ie

The European Space Agency has released the most detailed map yet of the Milky Way, shedding new light on the workings of our galaxy.

It contains data gathered by the Gaia observatory, which took off from Earth in 2013 and began observing stars in July 2014.

The new Gaia data hasallowed astronomers to trace older and younger stars out towards the very edge of our galaxy -the galacticanti-centre -and even predict the movement of stars over the next 1.6 million years.

This movement is imperceptible to the unaided eye, but is being measured with increasing precision by Gaia and an animation shows the motions of 40,000 stars starting from their current position.

Gaia data sets were previously released in 2016 and 2018.

The spacecraft has recorded the same stars several times by now and is, therefore, able to calculate movements and make predictions more accurately.

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3D map of Milky Way sheds light on workings of galaxy - RTE.ie