Astronomers have released the most detailed low-frequency, full-color radio image of the Milky Way Galaxy ever produced. Shared by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), the image reveals the southern sky of our galaxy with unprecedented depth and scale.
18 MONTHS OF WORK WITH SUPERCOMPUTERS
The assembly of the image took 18 months under the leadership of Curtin University PhD student Silvia Mantovanini. Nearly one million CPU hours were used at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre to process and combine data from two major radio surveys.
The data were collected using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in Western Australia. A total of 141 nights of observations were conducted between 2013 and 2020 as part of the GLEAM and GLEAM-X surveys.
BIRTH AND DEATH OF STARS IN RADIO LIGHT
Compared to the previous version published in 2019, the new image offers twice the resolution, ten times greater sensitivity, and twice the sky coverage. This technological leap allows astronomers to study stellar life cycles in far greater detail.
Mantovanini's research focuses in particular on supernova remnants—clouds of gas and energy left behind after stars explode at the end of their lives. The image clearly distinguishes between stellar nurseries and the remains of dead stars:
Large red rings: Remnants of exploded stars (supernovae).
Small blue regions: Areas where new stars are actively forming.
A MILESTONE AHEAD OF NEXT-GENERATION TELESCOPES
ICRAR Associate Professor Natasha Hurley-Walker said this is the first low-frequency radio image to cover the entire southern galactic plane, calling it an exciting milestone for astronomy.
Researchers cataloged 98,000 radio sources along the galactic plane, including pulsars, planetary nebulae, and dense clouds of ionized gas (H II regions).
It is noted that only the SKA-Low project—the world's largest radio telescope, expected to be completed in the next decade—will surpass the resolution and sensitivity achieved by this image.
