For centuries, astronomers have gazed up at the Milky Way and reasoned that because the ethereal band of cosmic light appears flat, that must resemble the shape of the galaxy. However, a groundbreaking new set of observations reveals our star system to be far from elegantly disc-shaped, but instead “warped” and twisted around the edges.

Scientists used data from an orbital telescope to calculate the positions of 1,339 Classical Cepheids, young stars about 20 times larger than the sun. From this they pieced together the first accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way to include its outer reaches.