There Milky Way reveals itself like never before thanks to the largest infrared map ever created, which includes more 1.5 billion objects. This immense celestial cartography, the result of 13 years of observations and more than 200,000 shots, reveals details never seen before, such as newborn stars, wandering planets and clouds of cosmic dust.
An unprecedented project
The project, led by the astronomer Dante Minniti from the Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile and published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysicsalso involved Italy. Researchers fromNational Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) of Rome, Bologna, Naples and Padua, as well as the University of Ferrara, participated in this extraordinary scientific undertaking.
The map is the result of the largest observation project ever conducted byEuropean Southern Observatory (ESO)with the use of an infrared camera mounted on the telescope View in Chile. This technology made it possible to penetrate dust and gases that usually obscure observations with visible light, bringing otherwise invisible objects to light.
Exceptional discoveries thanks to the map of the Milky Way
Thanks to these observations, incredible objects such as newborn stars still immersed in cosmic dust, globular clusters, brown dwarfsand even wandering planets which no longer orbit a star. “We have made so many discoveries that they have changed our view of our Galaxy forever,” Minniti enthused.
The observations, which began in 2010 and concluded in the first half of 2023, made it possible to trace the positions and movements of each object, also determining its variations in brightness. Among the most fascinating discoveries are the hypervelocity starsejected from the center of the galaxy after coming too close to the black hole inside it.
A new way to see the galaxy
This project not only gives us a detailed view of the Milky Waybut it allows us to create a three-dimensional map of our galaxy, a fundamental resource for future studies on stellar evolution and to better understand the behavior of mysterious cosmic objects such as wandering planets and hypervelocity stars.
If you want to stay updated on these extraordinary discoveries and other news from the world of space, don’t forget to follow us on social media and share this article with your friends.
#largest #map #Milky #billion #objects