The Milky Way’s great wave in motion

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space telescope has revealed that our Milky Way galaxy has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre.

This image shows the Mikly Way edge-on.

In the red areas, the stars are positioned more ‘upward’, and in blue areas the stars are more ‘downward’ in relation to the disc of the galaxy. 

The motions of the stars in the wave are made visible with the white arrows. What can be noticed, is that the peak of the upward motions (represented by the arrows) is slightly shifted relative to the physical distortion (indicated by the red/blue colours).

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[Image description: The image features a dark background with a thin, bright horizontal line running across the centre. This is our galaxy’s disc. Above and below this line, numerous white arrows point upward and downward. These arrows vary in length and are spread evenly along the line. Scattered among the arrows are small red and blue dots. The visual resembles an astronomical data visualisation, illustrating positions and motions of stars in our galaxy.]