Abstract

Data from ESA’s Gaia mission is already revolutionizing Galactic astronomy, providing an unprecedented view of the Solar neighborhood and beyond. However, while it provides us a great opportunity to transform our understanding of the Milky Way, it has also highlighted how far from equilibrium our Galaxy is. I discuss kinematic features in the Gaia data, such as the ridges and ripples in Galactic radius vs. azimuthal velocity and the z-v_z phase spiral, and show how we can leverage high resolution galaxy models and dynamical theory to learn about the structure and history of our Galaxy.