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This image shows an artistic impression of the Milky Way, and on top of that an overlay showing the location and densities of a young star sample from Gaia’s data release 3 (in yellow-green). The “you are here” sign points towards the Sun. 

The density of the star sample out to 5 kpc (~ 16 300 light years) from the Sun is provided on this image in the form of isodensity surfaces. The isodensity surfaces provide insight into the structure of our galaxy. The higher the density, the more young stars are found in this area. See more versions and read more about this map here. 

Acknowledgement: The overlay was created by Kevin Jardine based on data from the paper "Gaia Data Release 3: Mapping the asymmetric disc of the Milky Way" by the Gaia Collaboration, Drimmel, R., et al. 2022. The background Milky Way artistic impression was created by Stefan Payne-Wardenaar.