The wonders of our galaxy are on full display in a new infrared map of the Milky Way, showing a stunning 1.5 billion objects using data collected over 13 years. Researchers used the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s VISTA telescope to collect 500 terabytes of data, showing the nebulae, globular clusters, stars, planets, brown dwarfs, and other objects that make up our galaxy.
The VISTA telescope (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy), located on the Paranal Observatory in Chile, has an infrared instrument called VIRCAM that is able to look through clouds of dust and gas to observe objects that would be invisible in the visible light wavelength. Since 2010, researchers have been using this instrument to observe the Milky Way. They observed each patch of the sky multiple times, so they could see not only the location of particular objects but also how they were moving over time.
The full dataset is available on the ESO website, where you can scroll around and zoom in on an incredible map of the galaxy. Some of the objects you can observe include newborn stars nestled inside dusty cocoons, and failed stars called brown dwarfs that are bigger than planets but not large enough to sustain fusion and become full stars.
“We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever,” said project leader Dante Minniti of Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile in a statement.
One important part of the data is a more accurate map of the inner region of the Milky Way, which is often obscured by dust and is a busy region full of stars, gas, and the giant black hole at the very center of the galaxy. The researchers also spotted extremely fast-moving stars that had shot off at great speeds after coming close to that supermassive black hole. The survey is now complete, and the researchers hope that the trove of data they are sharing will be the basis of scientific discoveries for decades to come.
“The project was a monumental effort, made possible because we were surrounded by a great team,” says Roberto Saito, an astrophysicist at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil.
The research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.