Gaia's extinction map (Gaia Data Release 3)

Published for Gaia Data Release 3 on 13 June 2022.

In Gaia DR3 GSP-phot provides extinctions and distances for ~470 million individual stars. In this video we map the extinction as a function of 3D positon of the full sample of stars from the GSP-phot catalgoue as particle data to show the extinction variation of the Milky Way in 3D. We start the video with an artist impression of the top down view of the Milky Way and then the top down view of the Milky Way as seen in extinction using the GSP-phot data. And then we pan to see the view of the Galactic plane from the sun. Following this we pan and zoom in to see the view of several well known Galactic Molecular Clouds, including California, Perseus, Taurus and Orion.

See Andrae et al., 2022 for more details on the input data from GSP-phot.

Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Acknowledgements: T. Müller, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy / Haus der Astronomie
(Artist impression of Milky Way is based on "NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESO/R. Hurt", eso1339g, Music: "Planet Earth", Jeremusic70, pixabay)

Contact for further information on the video: Thavisha Dharmawardena, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy