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Gaia’s Map of 1.3 Billion Stars Makes for a Milky Way in a Bottle
- Call it a galaxy in a bottle.
Last Wednesday, astronomers in Europe released a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way.
- Dennis Overbye
- The New York Times
It is the most detailed survey ever produced of our home galaxy.
It contains the vital statistics of some 1.3 billion stars — about one percent of the whole galaxy.
Not to mention measurements of almost half a million quasars, asteroids and other flecks in the night.
Analyzing all these motions and distances, astronomers say, could provide clues to the nature of dark matter.
The gravity of…