The European Space Agency just released a picture of the Milky Way taken by its satellite Gaia as it orbits the Sun. The photo serves as the most detailed 3D map of our home galaxy to date, reports Esquire, charting the location, color and brightness of nearly 1.7 billion stars in our galaxy and those beyond. It also gives more specific stats on 1.3 billion stars. In the center of the recently released photo is the Galactic plane, where most of the Milky Way’s stars are located. Gaia’s map only covers a small sliver of the entire galaxy, despite its massive scope. There are likely as many as 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. But scientists can use this information from Gaia to learn more about dark matter, the mysterious force affecting the gravitational movement of object in the universe. We could also learn more about the birth and life of the Mikly Way.
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