Scientists have captured the sharpest radio image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy in the Milky Way that is 158,000 light-years from Earth, revealing thousands of unseen radio sources, including galaxies. .
Radio sources are various cosmic objects in the universe that emit large amounts of radio waves and can include nebulae and stars, as well as galaxies.
The research, led by Keele University in the UK, used the Australian Square Kilometer Telescope (ARK Pathfinder) (ASKAP) to “photograph” LMCs at radio wavelengths, allowing scientists to measure nearby stars and galaxies. distant.
Most radio sources come from millions and billions of light-years from galaxies beyond the large Magellanic cloud, ”said lead author Clara Peennock of Keele University in a statement.
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Scientists have captured the sharpest radio images (pictured) of the Large Magellanic Cloud (CML), a satellite galaxy in the Milky Way that is 158,000 light-years from Earth, revealing thousands of radio sources. never seen.
“We usually see them because of the supermassive black holes in their centers that can be detected at all wavelengths, especially radio,” Peennock continued.
But now we are also beginning to find many galaxies in which stars are forming at a huge rate.
‘The combination of this data with previous observations of X-ray, optical and infrared telescopes will allow us to explore these galaxies in extraordinary detail.’
The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way.
Most radio sources come from millions and billions of light-years from galaxies beyond the large Magellanic cloud, ”said lead author Clara Peennock of Keele University in a statement. In the image are several objects emitting radio waves
The first recorded mention of the great Magellanic cloud was from the Persian astronomer Shirazi, in his Book of Fixed Stars around 964 AD.
Along with capturing the sharpest radio images from the cloud, the researchers were able to delve deeper into the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star-forming region in the local group.
The tarantula nebula is a massive region of ionized hydrogen that is formed by a cloud of interstellar gas, illuminated from within by young, hot stars that ionize the surrounding gas, according to Britannica.
The nebula is about 160,000 light-years from Earth, located in the constellation Dorado (The Dolphinfish) in the southern sky.
Dr Jacco van Loon, a lecturer in astrophysics at Keele University, said in a statement: compact nebulae in the CML.
“We see all kinds of radio sources, from incipient stars to planetary nebulae that result from the death of stars like the Sun.”
This study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is part of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) Early Science Project, which will observe the entire southern sky and is expected to detect about 40 million galaxies. .
These data will provide researchers with a clearer picture of how galaxies and their stars have evolved over time and hopefully reveal secrets of our primitive universe.
Co-author Professor Andrew Hopkins, of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and leader of the EMU survey, added: “It is gratifying to see these exciting results from EMU’s first observations.
Along with capturing the sharpest radio images from the cloud, the researchers were able to delve deeper into the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star-forming region in the local group.
“EMU is an incredibly ambitious project with scientific goals ranging from understanding the evolution of stars and galaxies to cosmological measurements of dark matter and dark energy, and more.
“The findings of this initial work demonstrate the power of the ASKAP telescope to deliver sensitive images in large areas of the sky, providing a captivating insight into what the full EMU survey can reveal.
“This research has been instrumental in allowing us to design the main survey, which we hope will begin in early 2022.”