Cameren Swiggum

I study how star formation unfolded in our Galaxy over the past millions of years. I do this using vast star cluster catalogs built with data from the ESA Gaia mission. Drag the time slider below to see for yourself.

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, where I work in the group of Dr. Catherine Zucker. I recently completed my PhD at the University of Vienna under the supervision of Prof. João Alves.

Selected papers:

Click any paper below to highlight its result in the figure.

• Swiggum et al. (2024), Nature

This figure shows nearby star clusters in the local Milky Way and uses the time slider to rewind their motions, helping visualize when and where those clusters were likely born relative to surrounding Galactic structure. This is possible thanks to the precise astrometric data from the ESA Gaia mission.

The cluster sample is based on the Hunt & Reffert (2023) Gaia DR3 open cluster catalogue, and the dust distribution uses the Edenhofer et al. (2024) 3D dust map. Cluster orbits are traced backward by accounting for the Milky Way's gravitational potential using galpy .

Background Milky Way image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar - CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.