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You cannot simply drive a Google Maps automotive across the Milky Way to diagram it. It’s lucky, then, that new data gathered by the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory affords essentially the most detailed map but of the galaxy. The undertaking’s map now includes virtually 2 billion stars, and it helps the company hint the Milky Way’s historical past.
“The new Gaia data promise to be a treasure trove for astronomers,” Jos de Bruijne, ESA’s Gaia deputy undertaking scientist, stated in a assertion.
The new data not solely brings the whole quantity of stars mapped over seven years as much as near 2 billion, however it includes “a detailed census of more than 300,000 stars in our cosmic neighborhood,” that means stars inside 326 light-years of the solar. That 300,000 quantity is believed to be 92% of the stars in that space. That’s 100 instances extra stars than the previous information, which dates again to 1991.
The new information gives location, movement and brightness measurements which are “orders of magnitude” extra precise than the previous data. In reality, the info is so exact it is revealed that the solar’s path is not a straight line, however barely curved.
“Gaia has been staring at the heavens for the past seven years, mapping the positions and velocities of stars,” stated Caroline Harper, head of house science on the UK Space Agency. “Thanks to its telescopes, we have in our possession today the most detailed billion-star 3D atlas ever assembled.”
The new map helps astronomers make predictions, envisioning the actions of 40,000 stars 1.6 million years into the long run, the company studies.
This week’s launch is the primary of two elements, with the second anticipated in 2022. Gaia’s “stellar census” started in 2013.
(This story has not been edited by Newslivenation workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)