Overview

• The map reaches roughly 4,000 light-years from the Sun and focuses on dust and ionized gas in the local Milky Way.
• It incorporates data on about 44 million stars and highlights 87 rare O‑type stars observed by Gaia.
• Gaia’s extinction measurements were converted into a 3D dust model, with ionized hydrogen estimated as a tracer of recent massive star formation.
• ESA cites astronomer Lewis McCallum saying the distribution of ionized gas in this model aligns with multi-telescope sky observations better than previous efforts.
• ESA published top-down views and flythrough animations, presenting a useful approximation that still cannot directly image structures hidden behind the densest dust.