Reddish-pink nebulae spread their tentacles against a backdrop of glittering white stars. (Image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, S. Payne-Wardenaar, L. McCallum et al. (2025)) SUMMARY
What is it: A 3D map of star formation sites in the Milky Way.
Location: Up to 4,000 light years away, in the star-forming regions of the Milky Way.
When published: September 16, 2025
In a new image captured using data from the Gaia space telescope, flowing fuchsia wisps create an ethereal backdrop to millions of bright white dots. This stunning image offers a glimpse into the bright cosmic nurseries of newborn stars, previously hidden from view.
Among the 44 million “normal” stars imaged by Gaia are 87 O-type stars—rare young stars that are both extremely massive and hot. They emit bright ultraviolet light, which releases so much energy that the rays strip electrons from any hydrogen atoms they encounter, ionizing them. This process creates a cloud of charged hydrogen around O-type stars, called an HII region.
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Scientists can search for regions of this ionized gas to determine where star formation centers are located in the galaxy. They can also determine how far the effects of O-type stars extend.
Astronomers already had a good idea of what these nurseries looked like from Earth, but their view from other directions remained a blind spot. Using the 1-billion-pixel camera on the Gaia space telescope, which launched on December 19, 2013, and will operate until January 15, 2024, scientists created a 3D map of these regions.
Now anyone can fly through the Milky Way and see these stellar nurseries from different angles, according to the description of the European Space Agency (ESA) image. The map includes the Gum Nebula, the North America Nebula, and the California Nebula. ESA also released a video accompanying the image, offering a 3D overview of the new regions on the map.
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TOPICS James Webb Space Telescope Space Photo of the Week
Sophie Berdugo, Social Link Navigator, Live Science Contributor
Sophie is a UK-based staff writer for Live Science. She covers a wide range of topics, having previously covered research ranging from bonobo communication to the first water in the universe. Her work has also appeared in publications such as New Scientist, The Observer, and BBC Wildlife, and her freelance work for New Scientist was shortlisted for the 2025 Association of British Science Journalists' Newcomer of the Year Award. Before becoming a science journalist, she earned a PhD in evolutionary anthropology from Oxford University, where she spent four years studying why some chimpanzees are better tool users than others.
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