Radcliffe Wave

Radcliffe Wave — wave of molecular clouds, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Radcliffe Wave in an interactive 3D view of space. See its catalogue position, distance and astronomical facts.

A narrow chain of star-forming clouds about 8,800 light-years long, Orion among them, that ripples above and below the Milky Way’s disc like a wave, and is now known to be oscillating. It was found in 2020 by measuring the 3D distances of nearby clouds with Gaia data. Each point is one of those measured cloud distances; the line is the published best-fit wave.

Type

Wave-shaped chain of star-forming gas clouds

Length

About 8,800 light-years

Distance

Its clouds lie 550 to 5,300 light-years from the Sun

Rises and falls

Up to about 520 light-years above and below the Milky Way’s disc

Includes

Orion, Canis Major, Monoceros R2, Cepheus, the North America Nebula and Cygnus X

Found

2020, from Gaia-based cloud distances (Alves et al.)

Shown here

151 measured cloud distances (Zucker et al. 2020) at their 3D positions; warm above the disc, cool below

Guide line

Alves et al. 2020 best-fit wave — illustrative

Explore Radcliffe Wave in 3D

Radcliffe Wave is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.