Aurora from last night, in Minnesota, USA.

Stars in our galaxy make a stadium wave, Gaia finds 🙌 Our Milky Way galaxy never sits still: it rotates and wobbles 🌀 But #ESAGaia has just revealed that our galaxy also has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪 ☄️

An update of this classic diagram, using a top-down view with the updated Hα from McCallum et. al. 2025, and a new side-view from a different angle than previous ones to show the Sun's location. From this angle the disk is warping "down" towards the camera! www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

🐦 Fly through a 3D map of stellar nurseries ✨ Scientists have created the most accurate 3D map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from #ESAGaia. The map extends to a distance of 4000 light-years from us, with the Sun at the centre 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪

Watch as the familiar pattern of the Scorpius constellation distorts into a whole new perspective. The opening of the sequence pans up to Scorpius in the night sky. The brightest star in the constellation, Antares, is a red supergiant known as the "heart of the Scorpion." 🔭 🧪

Need to update my Betelgeuse model... noirlab.edu/public/news/...

Quick timelapse of the start of the Lunar Eclipse last night! Used a basic zoom lens on a tripod and stabilized in post, some day I'll get a fancier setup...

I added my comments on the end of Gaia Mission observations here: mastodon.social/@galaxy_map/...

My current best guess at what the Milky Way looks like, based in large part on Gaia Data. See @esascience for more details! and @HdAstro for more Milky Way and other visualizations coming soon...