Tour Our Milky Way Galaxy's 1.7 Billion Stars with Gaia

[Friends just call me Ross]

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http://earthsky.org/space/gaia-milky-way-map-2nd-data-release?

 

Gaia was launched in December 2013 and started science operations the following year.

 

The first data release, based on just over one year of observations, was published in 2016; it contained distances and motions of two million stars.

 

The new data release, which covers the period between July 25, 2014, and May 23, 2016, pins down the positions of nearly 1.7 billion stars,

and with a much greater precision. For some of the brightest stars in the survey, the level of precision equates to Earth-bound observers

being able to spot a Euro coin lying on the surface of the moon.

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Gaia will provide unprecedented positional and radial velocity measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a stereoscopic

and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our Galaxy and throughout the Local Group. This amounts to about 1 per cent of the Galactic stellar population. 

https://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2013/08/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia2

Use the controls in the videos to maneuver around the galaxy.

 

 

Who is mortal man, indeed!