gaia shape of galaxy

why does it look like a cigar instead of a pancake?

May 10 '18 17:05 bwanaaa

I think the simplest explanation is that the GAIA spacecraft exists in the galaxy itself, in one of the spiral arms. When it observes stars in the galaxy, it is looking at the galactic plane head-on. This is also why the milky way looks like a cigar in our night sky.

Additionally, the dataset currently visualized is limited to Tycho-2 stars, which are defined as the 2.5 million brightest stars. "Brightness" (star magnitude) will be dependent on position within the galactic plane.

May 10 '18 18:05 typpo

But if GAIA sees the galactic plane head on, why does the data not portray a disc?In other words, when I rotate the model in the browser, I never see a disc. It looks like I am twirling a cigar in space-I can actually look 'down the axis of the cigar' and see a cylinder. There is no way i can manipulate the viewport to see a plate or a disc or anything that's round.

I get the notion that we are in the galaxy and that we see stars all around us so we see the galaxy end on ALL THE TIME. But shouldn't there be distance data that would map the stars into a 3dimensional disc shape instead of a tube?

May 10 '18 19:05 bwanaaa