New sky map showcases more than 4 million galaxies and other objects
Millions of new objects have just been catalogued in a vast new sky map that will lead to more investigations about our universe’s environment. A map of roughly one-quarter of the northern sky was generated using a pan-European set of telescopes called the Low-Frequency Array, or LOFAR. It detected objects that are, for the most part, billions of light years away and include objects ranging from galaxies to distant stars.
The LOFAR scientists created an interactive animation of the huge sky map, as well as a vast database for the public to search for individual objects. “We anticipate [the survey] will lead to many more scientific breakthroughs in the future,” said Timothy Shimwell, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and Leiden University.
Possible investigations include “examining how the largest structures in the universe grow, how black holes form and evolve, the physics governing the formation of stars in distant galaxies and even detailing the most spectacular phases in the life of stars in our own galaxy,” Shimwell added.
Of the vast set, roughly 1 million of the objects were not known to astronomy before, the team said. What’s more, the entire set was catalogued in radio waves, giving a unique view of many objects that were already known to science that were viewed in other wavelengths. A healthy dose of machine learning was required to parse roughly eight petabytes of data – a single petabyte represents 1,000 terabytes. The team used novel data-processing algorithms on high-performance computers across Europe to process all the information, which was collected across 3,500 hours of observations.