Overview

• Built from Gaia observations of 44 million ordinary stars and 87 O‑type stars, the map spans roughly 4,000 light‑years with the Sun at the center.
• The technique infers dust from stellar extinction and uses hot‑star distances to locate HII regions, delivering the first reliable top‑down views and fly‑throughs of local nebulae.
• The model reproduces structures such as the Gum and North American nebulae, the California Nebula, and the Orion–Eridanus superbubble in three dimensions.
• Analysis suggests some clouds have ruptured, with streams of gas and dust venting into a giant nearby cavity, highlighting the influence of massive‑star radiation.
• The work integrates a 2024 dust map and is detailed in two MNRAS papers led by Lewis McCallum, with the team planning expansions using future Gaia releases, including a dataset currently scheduled for December 2026.