Astronomers just created the most detailed ‘radio map’ of our Universe!
Imagine looking through magic glasses that let you see things that no one else can!
For over 10 years, an international team of astronomers have been scanning the sky with a special telescope called the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), which sees the world through radio waves – a kind of light that’s invisible to our eyes.
They found a whopping 13.7 million cosmic objects in the Universe, making it the most detailed radio map of our Universe. From powerful jets coming from the supermassive black holes to leftovers from exploding stars called supernova remnants, the map contains plenty of surprising faint objects that couldn’t be seen before. The team developed new computer programs to produce the detailed image of the sky in radio light. Now astronomers are super excited to explore all the objects that they found.
By looking at so many different supermassive black holes and jets coming from them at different times, astronomers can learn how these giant monsters change over time. They also see how the host galaxies, the surrounding neighborhood, and the supermassive black holes mutually shape how each of these objects grow and evolve.
The survey also helped scientists measure how quickly stars are born in galaxies. It turns out that each galaxy makes stars at its own pace and this can change over the history of the Universe.
The survey also revealed many groups of galaxies called galaxy clusters. The clusters contain clouds of hot soupy space materials called plasma. And when clusters bump into each other, they stir the soup and speed up the particles in it, creating bow shocks. By studying these clusters, astronomers can see how bow shocks and other space events make tiny particles zip around faster and stretch magnetic fields over huge distances – sometimes millions of light-years across – like stirring a spaghetti soup and the spaghetti gets twisted, tangled and stretched.
But that’s not all, the survey also found some of the oldest and biggest radio galaxies ever, plus radio waves that are released especially when exoplanets and their host stars, like the Earth and the Sun, meet and greet.
The team is now excited for the upcoming LOFAR2.0 upgrade. With this, they hope to discover even more incredible secrets hiding in our Universe!
(Space Scoop)
