“These data represent a significant step in astrophysics and can be used to search for a wide range of signals, from nearby planets or galaxies to weak signatures in the distant universe.” The researchers write
An astronomer from Durham University collaborating with a team of international scientists has mapped more than a quarter of the northern sky using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a pan-European radio telescope. The map now published for the first time reveals a remarkably detailed radio image of more than 4.4 million objects and presents a very dynamic picture of our universe.
The vast majority of these objects are billions of light-years away. Most of them are galaxies that have massive black holes in the center or galaxies where a lot of new stars are born. Rare objects discovered include colliding groups of distant galaxies as well as stars within the Milky Way.
To produce the map, scientists have deployed state-of-the-art data processing algorithms on high-performance computers across Europe to process 3,500 hours of observations that occupy 8 petabytes of disk space – the equivalent of about 20,000 laptops.
This database, which is without a doubt the largest made using the LOFAR Sky Survey from a 2-meter-diameter telescope, shows about a million objects that have never been seen before from any telescope and almost four million wavelength objects in the field of radio.
Astronomer Timothy Shimwell of ASTRON and Leiden University, said: “It was very exciting to work on this project. Every time we create a map our screens are full of new discoveries and objects never seen by human eyes. Exploring the unfamiliar phenomena in the energy radio universe is an experience So amazing and our team is excited to be able to publish these maps in public.This edition is only 27% of the entire survey and we anticipate it will lead to many more scientific breakthroughs in the future, including examining how the largest structures in the universe grow, how black holes form and evolve, what “Physics that controls the formation of stars in distant galaxies and even details the most spectacular stages in the life of the stars in our galaxy.”
University of Durham scientist Dr Leah Morbito said: “We have opened the door to new discoveries with this project, and future projects will follow these new discoveries in even more detail using techniques we are working on here at Durham as part of the LOFAR-UK collaboration, to enable Data processing at a resolution 20 times better. “
“These data represent a significant step in astrophysics and can be used to search for a wide range of signals, from nearby planets or galaxies to weak signatures in the distant universe.”
To the scientific paper
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