So, a few weeks ago
we published a research paper about a new map of the Solar Neighbourhood using OB stars (which is the most precise to date as it seems) using data from the Gaia mission (don't worry I will make an addon for our cataog in summer when we release the second iteration of this research, with a huge increase in accuracy and the number of objects depicted in the map). Obviously as a long term SE fan I jumped inmediately and used SpaceEngine for a
press release animation
[youtube]faet_rDdqEA[/youtube]
The stars colored in cyan/blue are the ones in the Orion/Local arm (the one where the Solar System is located), the ones in crimson are the ones in the Perseus arm, and the ones in purple are members of the Sagittarius arm. One of our discoveries is a new structure in the Galaxy; we call it The Cepheus Spur and is a bridge of young stellar associations between the Orion arm and the Perseus arm. You can see the Cepheus Spur marked with yellow dots in the animation. The Cepheus spur is consistently above the mid-galactic plane (something that can even be seen in the animation) which is also an interesting discovery. We believe,
as other authors have noted, that there are corrugations in the Galactic disk; oscillations in the vertical spatial distribution of stars, which in turn might contain clues about
past galactic collisions.
Since I work in Spain (at the Center of Astrobiology) as a student, the attention has been given mainly in the spanish media. The main newspapers of the country have shown the SpaceEngine animation or at least apart of it (
El País,
El Mundo,
ABC,
20 minutos,
AS,
Público and
others). Even
National Geographic and
RussiaToday (in English) has voiced it (albeit, sadly, with a conspiratorial headline). Finally after some interviews on the radio it has also appeared on television (I've always credited SpaceEngine and Vladimir Romanyuk for the animation but only CNN explicitly mentioned it, sorry).
CanalSur (Andalusian regional TV) [look at 0:41], Canal 24 horas (main public news channel in Spain) [look at 0:44] and CNN (in spanish) [look at 21:32]:
[youtube]6dCFIqUXI_s[/youtube]
[youtube]9vzMHbNK_6c[/youtube]
[youtube]axSVeW2KEEc[/youtube]
So that's it. I wanted to post about our work in the "
Show off your work" thread but since it has jumped to the news media I think is better for you to know that SpaceEngine is being used there. Thank you Vladimir for your inmense work all these years. And sorry if I've been so absent for the past 2 years (even if I promised you that I would make sense of Gaia data for the project), but this was the thing that got me busy all this time.
As I said, I will probably build an addon of ~20.000 blue massive luminous stars in the Milky Way this summer when we update the catalog and include more precise distance estimates based on bayesian analysis of the new Gaia data. I will also try to make an addon with a better texture for the Milky Way using
Robert Hurt's artistic model, which is currently the most updated and scientifically accurate artistic representation available. And if I'm able to get some time for it I will make
a few articles for SpaceEngine regarding the Cosmic Distance Ladder and how we really measure distances in the Galaxy in detail.
See you soon