A new side-view image of the Milky Way galaxy, using data from the Gaia spacecraft, has revealed its curved structure and thin disk.
Scientists recently created a simulated side-view image of the Milky Way galaxy using data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia spacecraft.
Since we live inside this galaxy, it is not possible to take a real picture of its exterior.
But by examining the positions of more than a billion stars, a precise picture of the overall structure of the galaxy has been obtained.
This image shows that the Milky Way, like many other spiral galaxies, has a very thin central disk.
The Sun and all the stars we see at night are located in this same disk.
An interesting and perhaps unexpected feature of this new finding is the curvature of the edges of the galaxy’s disk, a phenomenon that was previously only hypothesized.
The different colors in the image, including the darkness caused by dust, the bright blue stars, and the red nebulae, all reveal the true features of different parts of the galaxy.
