“By having this level of detail, we can look at where the gas may be coming into the Milky Way – we’re sort of searching out the food sources,” Professor McClure Griffiths told Mashable.
Check this out, the most detailed picture ever produced of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
The increadible imagry is the result of 10 years hard labour by some of the brightest stars of Australian and German astronomy.
The amazing galactic photo, named HI4PI, was compiled by mapping the hydrogen of our cosmic neighbourhood over 10 years.
Data was combined from observations made by powerful cameras using telescopes on opposite ends of the earth; one in Effelsberg in Germany and the other in Parkes, Australia.
The resulting ‘map’ of the galaxy is similar to a two-dimensional map of Earth.
The team who created it say they hope, among other things, it will help in understanding from where and how the Milky Way gets the extra gases needed to help form new stars.
“By having this level of detail, we can look at where the gas may be coming into the Milky Way – we’re sort of searching out the food sources,” Professor McClure Griffiths told Mashable.