This map is based on Gaia’s observations of 44 million ordinary stars and 87 O-type stars. (O-type stars are rare starts, they are young, massive and extremely bright and hot.) These star-forming regions are well-studied; many telescopes have captured stunning images of them. But now for the first time, we know what they look like in three dimensions and from an outside perspective. This new animation reaches out to 4000 light-years from the Sun, giving us our best-ever 3D view of where stars are born in our cosmic neighbourhood. 📹 European Space Agency (ESA) 📸 ESA/Gaia/DPAC, S. Payne-Wardenaar, L. McCallum et al (2025), Creative Commons by-SA 3.0 IGO #ESA #Gaia #Space