Description
Data from ESA’s Gaia mission has revolutionised Galactic astronomy, providing an unprecedented view of the Solar neighbourhood and beyond. However, while it provides us a great opportunity to transform our understanding of the Milky Way, it has also highlighted how far from equilibrium our Galaxy is. The spiral pattern in vertical position vs. velocity is a signature of our Galaxy’s past interaction with perturbing influences such as merging dwarf galaxies, or internal substructure. We dissect and analyse these ‘phase spirals’ in the Gaia data, and show how we can leverage high resolution galaxy models and dynamical theory to learn about the structure and history of our Galaxy.
Primary author
Jason Hunt
(University of Surrey)
