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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Unveiling the Milky Way with a Gaia DR3 census of OB-type stars within 2 kpc. I. Tracing local Galactic structure, massive star-forming regions and core-collapse supernova progenitors

  • Alexis L Quintana1
  • Kiril Maltsev2
  • Eloisa Poggio3
  • Emily L Hunt4
  • Nicholas J Wright5
  • Sara R Berlanas6,7
  • Laia Casamiquela1
  • Abel de Burgos8
  • Hanna Parul1
  • Misha Haywood1
  • Paola Di Matteo1
  • Chervin Laporte1,9,10
1 more authors
  • Juan Martínez García5
10 affiliations
  1. 1LIRA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité , CY Cergy Paris Université, CNRS, 92190 Meudon ,
  2. 2Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie , Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg ,
  3. 3INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino , via Osservatorio 20, 10025 Pino Torinese (TO) ,
  4. 4University of Vienna Department of Astrophysics, , Türkenschanzstrasse 17, 1180 Wien ,
  5. 5Astrophysics Group , Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG ,
  6. 6Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , E-38 200 La Laguna, Tenerife ,
  7. 7Universidad de La Laguna Departamento de Astrofísica, , E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife ,
  8. 8European Southern Observatory , Alonso de Córdova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago ,
  9. 9Institut de Ciéncies del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona , Martí i Franqués 1, E-08028 Barcelona ,
  10. 10Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo , Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583 ,
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Abstract

O- and B-type stars are young and hot, thereby serving as vital tracers of the star formation and spiral arm structure of the Milky Way. At the dusk of the Gaia DR3 era, a high-confidence and accurate catalogue appears timely. We have characterized 105,971 OB-type stars (Teff > 10,000 K) within 2 kpc from the Sun, using an astro-photometric Bayesian inference tool. Our map unveils a complex view of the young stellar populations across the thin disk, with prominent large-scale features such as the Cepheus Spur, the Giant Oval Cavity, and a segment the Sagittarius-Carina arm all visible. Their inhomogeneous spatial distribution implies that massive star formation has taken place clustered across a few highly concentrated regions. We find a correlation between the overdensities of OB-type stars and young open clusters, and attribute departure from it to extinction effects. We identify 4200 stars as model-dependent core-collapse supernova (ccSN) or direct-collapse black hole (BH) progenitor candidates, including 6 ccSN progenitor candidates within 125 pc – the maximum radius within which a ccSN explosion could be harmful to Earth’s biosphere – but our analysis suggests none of them exploding within the next 5 Myrs. Finally, we anticipate more evolved OB-type stars to collapse to form BHs within the next 1 Myr than ccSN progenitors will explode, despite the former’s much scarcer number. A possible interpretation is a recent star formation burst in the local Milky Way, consistent with overdensities of ccSN progenitor candidates in Cyg OB2 and the Sagittarius-Carina arm.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{quintana2026unveiling,
  title = {{Unveiling the Milky Way with a Gaia DR3 census of OB-type stars within 2 kpc. I. Tracing local Galactic structure, massive star-forming regions and core-collapse supernova progenitors}},
  author = {Alexis L Quintana and Kiril Maltsev and Eloisa Poggio and Emily L Hunt and Nicholas J Wright and Sara R Berlanas and Laia Casamiquela and Abel de Burgos and Hanna Parul and Misha Haywood and Paola Di Matteo and Chervin Laporte and Juan Martínez García},
  journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.1093/mnras/stag2107},
  url = {https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag2107/9012722},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Unveiling the Milky Way with a Gaia DR3 census of OB-type stars within 2 kpc. I. Tracing local Galactic structure, massive star-forming regions and core-collapse supernova progenitors
AU  - Alexis L Quintana
AU  - Kiril Maltsev
AU  - Eloisa Poggio
AU  - Emily L Hunt
AU  - Nicholas J Wright
AU  - Sara R Berlanas
AU  - Laia Casamiquela
AU  - Abel de Burgos
AU  - Hanna Parul
AU  - Misha Haywood
AU  - Paola Di Matteo
AU  - Chervin Laporte
AU  - Juan Martínez García
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/04
JO  - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DO  - 10.1093/mnras/stag2107
UR  - https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag2107/9012722
AB  - O- and B-type stars are young and hot, thereby serving as vital tracers of the star formation and spiral arm structure of the Milky Way. At the dusk of the Gaia DR3 era, a high-confidence and accurate catalogue appears timely. We have characterized 105,971 OB-type stars (Teff > 10,000 K) within 2 kpc from the Sun, using an astro-photometric Bayesian inference tool. Our map unveils a complex view of the young stellar populations across the thin disk, with prominent large-scale features such as the Cepheus Spur, the Giant Oval Cavity, and a segment the Sagittarius-Carina arm all visible. Their inhomogeneous spatial distribution implies that massive star formation has taken place clustered across a few highly concentrated regions. We find a correlation between the overdensities of OB-type stars and young open clusters, and attribute departure from it to extinction effects. We identify 4200 stars as model-dependent core-collapse supernova (ccSN) or direct-collapse black hole (BH) progenitor candidates, including 6 ccSN progenitor candidates within 125 pc – the maximum radius within which a ccSN explosion could be harmful to Earth’s biosphere – but our analysis suggests none of them exploding within the next 5 Myrs. Finally, we anticipate more evolved OB-type stars to collapse to form BHs within the next 1 Myr than ccSN progenitors will explode, despite the former’s much scarcer number. A possible interpretation is a recent star formation burst in the local Milky Way, consistent with overdensities of ccSN progenitor candidates in Cyg OB2 and the Sagittarius-Carina arm.
SN  - 0035-8711
SN  - 1365-2966
ER  -