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Europe's billion star mapper has released its first set of data, based on the first year of data.

The first Gaia data release has produced a sky map of the Milky Way and its near neighbours. The map shows star density and is marked by dark bands of interstellar dust within the galactic disk. Many globular clusters can be seen in the halo of the galaxy; the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are visible in the lower right of the image, with the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies in the lower left of the image.