Encounters in the Milky Way

Discover the chance encounters that have shaped our place in the universe. Reaching billions of years into the past and peering millions of years into the future, Encounters in the Milky Way is a time-traveling journey about the cosmic movements that shape our galactic neighborhood. Witness spectacular moments in our solar system's past and future, including the paths of stars, comets, interstellar debris, and visually stunning gas and dust clouds–and, visualized for the first time, a dramatic, ongoing merger of our galaxy with a smaller satellite galaxy. Developed by a team that includes astronomers, science visualization experts, and artists, Encounters in the Milky Way is made possible by data from one of the most transformative projects of the past century: the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, dubbed the "billion-star survey" for mapping the precise positions, distances, and motions of nearly 2 billion stars in our galaxy. Encounters in the Milky Way was developed by the American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org) with the major support and partnership of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).