The Milky Way galaxy is like a gigantic ocean gyre or eddy that spins and wobbles around its center.

But our home galaxy also has a colossal wave rippling through it, pulling and pushing an ocean of stars and cosmic dust in its wake, according to newly released images from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.

The images show that this wave of motion emanates from the center of the Milky Way and takes up a large portion — a little less than half — of the galaxy’s entire body, which itself is warped in the outer edges. Looking at the galaxy in a vertical sideways view, you see that stars float above or below the disc’s dusty central body, as if they were fish bobbing up and down in a wave of water after a boat passes by.

The new images, publicly disseminated on Tuesday by the

See Full Page