Science & Exploration Fly through Gaia’s 3D map of stellar nurseries 16/09/2025 17647 views 69 likesScientists created the most accurate three-dimensional map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. The most accurate 3D map of stellar nurseries in the Milky WayGaia can’t see these clouds directly, but it can measure stellar positions and the so-called ‘extinction’ of stars. Extremely bright, young stars Gaia sees stellar nurseries (animation still 2) The new 3D map of star-forming regions in the Milky Way is based on Gaia observations of 44 million ‘ordinary’ stars and 87 O-type stars. The Milky Way from above Gaia’s star-formation map (slider)Imagine that you are looking at the Milky Way from another galaxy. [2] The work from Lewis McCallum and his team is based on earlier work published by Edenhofer et al in 2024, who created a dust map of our local galaxy.