An international team of astronomers has observed thousands of galaxies in the process of forming stars using ultra-sensitive radio images.
The scientists compiled images of the early universe using the International Low-Frequency Telescope (LOFAR), which is a European network of radio antennas, and works by combining signals from more than 70,000 antennas, located in stations all over the Netherlands and in European partner countries including the United Kingdom .
By observing the same areas of the sky over and over, and combining the data to create a very long exposure, the team discovered the faint radio glare of stars exploding in the form of supernovae, in tens of thousands of galaxies to the most distant parts of the universe.
To produce the images, more than four petabytes of raw data, equivalent to about one million DVDs, were captured and processed.
"When we look at the sky with a radio telescope, the brightest objects we see come from the huge black holes in the center of galaxies. Yet our images are so deep that most of the things in them are galaxies like," said Philip Best of the University of Edinburgh, who led the deep scan. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, emits faint radio waves that track continuous star formation. "
"The combination of LOFAR's high sensitivity and the vast area of sky covered by our survey, about 300 times the size of a full moon, enabled us to discover tens of thousands of galaxies like the Milky Way, far into the vast universe."
He added: "The light emitted from these galaxies travels for billions of years to reach the Earth, and this means that we see the galaxies as they were billions of years ago, when they were forming most of their stars."
"Star formation is usually surrounded by dust, which blocks our vision when we look with optical telescopes. But radio waves penetrate the dust, so using LOFAR we get a complete picture of star formation," said Isabella Brandoni, of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Bologna, who was involved in the research. ".
LOFAR is operated by ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, and jointly in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.
Source: Daily Mail
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