What lies between the stars?
The galactic plane is not all stars. In between those luminous balls of gas are interstellar dust and clouds of gas, from which stars are born.
By measuring the positioning of stars and the light they emit, Gaia also captured the absorption of starlight by the interstellar medium, creating a map of the interstellar dust in the Milky Way. The darker blue areas in the visualization reveal more concentrated regions of dust, which fades into the yellow to indicate a fading amount of dust.
