{"id":253333,"date":"2025-11-09T16:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T16:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/253333\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T16:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T16:12:11","slug":"unprecedented-radio-view-of-the-milky-way-took-over-40000-hours-to-construct-space-photo-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/253333\/","title":{"rendered":"Unprecedented radio view of the Milky Way took over 40,000 hours to construct \u2014 Space photo of the week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quick facts<\/p>\n<p class=\"fancy-box__body-text\">What it is: The Southern Hemisphere view of the Milky Way galaxy<\/p>\n<p class=\"fancy-box__body-text\">Where it is: All around us<\/p>\n<p class=\"fancy-box__body-text\">When it was shared: Oct. 29, 2025<\/p>\n<p id=\"f5c3a666-b369-4677-901f-46be0aee64ff\">We cannot see or image the entire <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/tag\/milky-way\" data-auto-tag-linker=\"true\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/tag\/milky-way\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milky Way<\/a> galaxy, because we are located inside it. From Earth, we can observe only a portion of the galaxy, and when we look up at the dark, clear night sky from a place free of light pollution, <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/cosmic-fire-and-earthly-ice-see-the-breathtaking-winners-of-the-milky-way-photographer-of-the-year-2025-contest\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/cosmic-fire-and-earthly-ice-see-the-breathtaking-winners-of-the-milky-way-photographer-of-the-year-2025-contest\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Milky Way appears<\/a> as a complex, busy band of stars and dust. This is our edge-on view of the dense galactic plane of our galaxy. And that&#8217;s just the visible light view.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Imagine the sheer extravagance of this structure were it to be captured in radio colors, which can penetrate the thick clouds of dust and gas that block visible wavelengths. Fortunately, astronomers have now successfully captured a <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icrar.org\/gleam-x-galactic-plane\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.icrar.org\/gleam-x-galactic-plane\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">stunning view<\/a> of the galactic plane as seen from the Southern Hemisphere using a wide range of radio wavelengths.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-url=\"\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"f5c3a666-b369-4677-901f-46be0aee64ff-2\"><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Silvia_Mantovanini\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Silvia_Mantovanini\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Silvia Mantovanini<\/a>, a PhD student at Curtin University in Australia, took nearly 40,000 hours to compile the data from two surveys called the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM) and GLEAM eXtended (GLEAM-X). The GLEAM and GLEAM-X surveys, conducted using the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mwatelescope.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.mwatelescope.org\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Murchison Widefield Array<\/a> telescope, yielded abundant data over 28 nights in 2013 and 2014, and 113 nights from 2018 to 2020.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p id=\"bceec7ce-d4a0-4918-85fe-261b9a48ddbe\">Thanks to significant improvements in sky coverage, resolution and sensitivity, the new image provides twice the resolution, has 10 times the sensitivity and covers double the area of the previous GLEAM image released in 2019, according to a <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icrar.org\/gleam-x-galactic-plane\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.icrar.org\/gleam-x-galactic-plane\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">statement<\/a> from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Researchers say that only <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/ska-telescope-construction-begins\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/ska-telescope-construction-begins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the SKA-Low telescope<\/a>, an array of tens of thousands of radio antennae set to be completed next decade, can surpass this level of sensitivity and resolution.<\/p>\n<p>This extensive survey view is the largest low-frequency radio color image of the Milky Way ever created. Since most of the imaged region had never been observed at these frequencies, this galactic landscape marks a significant milestone, the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:15.35%;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/39XEwkWpnQAFesJbEBbRGC.jpg\" alt=\"A panoramic photo of the Milky Way shown in visible light and through the GLEAM\/GLEAM-X view\"   loading=\"lazy\" data-new-v2-image=\"true\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/39XEwkWpnQAFesJbEBbRGC.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/39XEwkWpnQAFesJbEBbRGC.jpg\" class=\"expandable\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/39XEwkWpnQAFesJbEBbRGC.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"expand-button icon-expand-image icon\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/39XEwkWpnQAFesJbEBbRGC.jpg\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"><\/p>\n<p>The GLEAM\/GLEAM-X view of the Milky Way galaxy (top) compared to the same area of the Milky Way in visible light. (Image credit: S. Mantovanini &amp; the GLEAM-X team \/ Axel Mellinger, milkywaysky.com)<\/p>\n<p id=\"02290bba-7a43-4541-9551-a76d8038c939\">The low-frequency radio waves revealed remnants of exploded stars and regions of ionized gas where new stars are forming. The &#8220;colors&#8221; of radio light captured in the image help astronomers distinguish between different objects in the sky. The large red bubbles reveal dead stars and their expanding shells, whereas the compact blue regions are where new stars are born.<\/p>\n<p id=\"7fc76fcb-1d55-4e95-841f-69ca9459e83b\">The surveys contain more than 98,000 radio sources \u2014 including pulsars, <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/25-gorgeous-nebula-photos-that-capture-the-beauty-of-the-universe\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/25-gorgeous-nebula-photos-that-capture-the-beauty-of-the-universe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">planetary nebulae<\/a> and compact star-forming regions \u2014 across the Milky Way&#8217;s plane as seen from the Southern Hemisphere. The new image captures the stellar life cycle from start to finish: the evolution of stars, their formation in different regions of our galaxy, their interactions with other objects and, ultimately, their death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Get the world\u2019s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>The team&#8217;s work was published Oct. 28 in the journal <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/publications-of-the-astronomical-society-of-australia\/article\/galactic-and-extragalactic-allsky-murchison-widefield-array-survey-extended-gleamx-iii-galactic-plane\/C95F9B7DC74EC3F9D3DDCD1C43A905BD\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/publications-of-the-astronomical-society-of-australia\/article\/galactic-and-extragalactic-allsky-murchison-widefield-array-survey-extended-gleamx-iii-galactic-plane\/C95F9B7DC74EC3F9D3DDCD1C43A905BD\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more sublime space images, check out our <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/tag\/space-photo-of-the-week\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/tag\/space-photo-of-the-week\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Space Photo of the Week archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quick facts What it is: The Southern Hemisphere view of the Milky Way galaxy Where it is: All&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-253333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}