Astonishingly detailed map of the Milky Way will blow your mind

We now have the most detailed catalogue of stars in our Milky Way galaxy yet. 

The new map — created using data collected by the Gaia satellite — shows about 1.7 billion stars, including many objects never seen before, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), which runs Gaia. 

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The catalogue represents almost two years of sky charting.

“The observations collected by Gaia are redefining the foundations of astronomy,” Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science, said in a statement.

“Gaia is an ambitious mission that relies on a huge human collaboration to make sense of a large volume of highly complex data.” Read more...

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