Gaia Satellite Maps Galaxy

This is a news story, published by BBC Sky at Night Magazine, that relates primarily to Galaxy news.

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Milky Way galaxy

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entire Milky Way

BBC Sky at Night Magazine

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How do we know what our Milky Way galaxy looks like when we're inside it?

Summary

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72% Informative

The Milky Way is much too big for us to be able to send a spacecraft far enough into space that it could turn around, photograph our Galaxy and show us what it really looks like.

Despite this they have managed to not only map out our local neighbourhood, they can see right across town thanks to the largest survey of our Galaxy to date by ESA 's Gaia satellite.

Mapping the entire sky between 1989 and 1993 revealed an asymmetry in the gas of the Milky Way’s core.

An elongated bar of stars extends through the centre of the galaxy, at an angle of 27 from the Sun , with the two major arms spinning off from either end.

A type of star found in areas of high star formation, known as a maser, emits clear radio waves that can penetrate through the entire galaxy.

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informal

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English

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