Have you seen the most accurate and beautiful map of the Milky Way? – The opinion

The map provides more and better information than that provided by the first version of 2009.

This is the map of the Milky Way more complete than has been done so the date. Astronomers from the European Space Observatory (ESO for its acronym in English) developed the beautiful galactic plane from the southern hemisphere, where areas of dense cold gas and are observed: the substance from which stars are born <. /> p>

the new map is called ATLASGAL and was conducted using the APEX telescope, scanning the area from the altitude 5,100 meters above sea level in the Atacama desert, Chile.

the image provides “an exciting look at where the next generation of clusters and massive stars will form,” said the expert of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, Timea Csengeri.

Csengeri it is responsible for coordinating the information provided by the APEX and the Planck satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA, its acronym in English). The combination of both sources enabled astronomers to detect emissions spread over a larger area of ​​sky.

Carlos De Breuck scientist APEX program at the European Southern Observatory, he told BBC world astronomers have “a general idea of ​​ how stars are formed from the condensation of clouds of gases , but missing details”.

“to find, for example , which stars is formed from what kind of clouds, we need more information, we need to map the galaxy to determine under what conditions generate “he said from Munich, Germany.

APEX, which in Spanish means Atacama Pathfinder Experiment, has equipment to study the so-called “cold universe”: objects in space like stellar gas and dust where temperatures are close to absolute zero (-273 Celsius).

the telescope of 12 meters, employs submillimeter wavelengths among infrared light and radio waves to capture more details and images of better quality.

it also has a bolometer camera (LABOCA), which measures the incoming radiation by registering small increases in temperature causing its detectors, and can receive broadcasts in the dark dust lanes and cold obscuring starlight.

The APEX has worked the last 10 years since the height of the Chajnantor Plateau.

the first information ATLASGAL was released in 2009 per or the current map is four times larger than its first version and more precise.