Comment by iAmAPencilYo
4 days ago
All of these are "Artist's Impressions". My best guess is they run a simulation based on the data from the spacecraft and then can pan the camera around as they see fit
4 days ago
All of these are "Artist's Impressions". My best guess is they run a simulation based on the data from the spacecraft and then can pan the camera around as they see fit
From the page:
[Image Description: A model image of what our home galaxy, the Milky Way, might look like edge-on, against a pitch-black backdrop. The Milky Way’s disc appears in the centre of the image, as a thin, dark-brown line spanning from left to right, with the hint of a wave in it. The line appears to be etched into a thin glowing layer of silver sand, that makes it look as if it was drawn with a coloured pencil on coarse paper. The bulge of the galaxy sits like a glowing, see-through pearl in the shape of a sphere in the centre of this brown line.]
That's an AI produced accessibility description so I thought it seemed wrong. But more directly from the article text: This is a new artist’s impression of our galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope.
Is it AI produced (if so, do they communicate it somewhere?) or do you believe it is?
The face-on galaxy image is credited to Stefan Payne-Wardenaar (https://stefanpw.myportfolio.com/home), whose Twitter and Bluesky bios say, "I make astronomy visualizations in Blender."
"The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (edge-on)"
The "by Gaia" implies the opposite to me. Unless the "artist's impressions" are from someone named Gaia???
"This is a new artist’s impression of our galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope."
I'm sure you know of headlines vs details; when it comes down to it, space science relies on marketing to get some funding and interest in it, and using 100% accurate headlines is not good marketing.