2025年5月12日
Gaia Reconstructs a Side View of our Galaxy
Illustration Credit: ESA, Gaia, DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar
Explanation: What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the side? Because we are on the inside, humanity can’t get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESA’s Gaia mission. The resulting featured illustration shows that just like many other spiral galaxies, our Milky Way has a very thin central disk. Our Sun and all the stars we see at night are in this disk. Although hypothesized before, perhaps more surprising is that the disk appears curved at the outer edges. The colors of our Galaxy’s warped central band derive mostly from dark dust, bright blue stars, and red emission nebulas. Although data analysis is ongoing, Gaia was deactivated in March after a successful mission.
Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow’s picture: again from the top
盖亚任务重建的银河系侧视图
图示提供: ESA, Gaia, DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar
说明: 从侧面看，我们的银河系长什么模样？由于我们位于银河系之内，无法取得真实的照片。不过，最近使用欧洲航天局盖亚任务（Gaia mission）超过10亿颗恒星的位置数据，科学家绘制出银河系的侧视图。如这幅建构出的主题图示所示，与许多 其他 螺旋 星系类似，银河系具有非常纤薄的中央盘面。太阳和我们在夜空中见到的所有恒星，都位于这个盘面里。虽然早就有理论预测，但还是颇令人惊讶的，是这个盘面的外围边缘竟然是弯曲的。图中银河系弯曲中央盘面的色泽，主要来自黝黑的星际尘埃、明亮的蓝色恒星，以及红色的发射星云。尽管数据分析仍在持续之中，但是为了给后续的任务让出位置，盖亚天文卫星已于今年三月除役。
探索你的宇宙: 随机APOD生成器
明日的图片: again from the top
