Brand new, low-frequency radio colour images of the Milky Way galaxy have been created by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, revealing new ways for astronomers to explore the birth, evolution and death of stars in our galaxy.
Silvia Mantovanini, PhD student at Curtin University, dedicated over 40,000 hours of research to the image construction, surveying stars using the Murchison Widefield Array telescope in Western Australia.
“This vibrant image delivers an unparalleled perspective of our galaxy at low radio frequencies,” Mantovanini said.
“It provides valuable insights into the evolution of stars, including their formation in various regions of the galaxy, how they interact with other celestial objects, and ultimately their demise.”
The high resolution, sensitivity and overall sky coverage of the image is significant in providing researchers with new insights into star evolution and cosmic patterns. Focusing on supernovae, the image makes it clearly identifiable to researchers the gas surrounding new and dead stars, thus revealing observable trends and patterns.
“You can clearly identify remnants of exploded stars, represented by large red circles. The smaller blue regions indicate stellar nurseries where new stars are actively forming,” Mantovanini said.
The new image, which has twice the resolution, 10 times the sensitivity and covers twice the area compared to previous GaLactic and Extragalactic All-Sky MWA (GLEAM) images and surveys, was constructed based on 18 months of extensive surveys and research by supercomputers at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.
Researchers analysed nearly 100,000 radio sources from the visible galactic plane from the southern hemisphere revealing pulsars, planetary nebulae, ionised gas clouds and other galaxies.
Associate Professor Natasha Hurley-Walker, principal investigator of the GLEAM-X survey, highlighted this achievement in space imaging as a major milestone.
“No low-frequency radio image of the entire southern galactic plane has been published before, making this an exciting milestone in astronomy.”
“Only the world’s largest radio telescope, the SKA Observatory’s SKA-Low telescope, set to be completed in the next decade on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, will have the capacity to surpass this image in terms of sensitivity and resolution,” she said.