[ad_1]
Dr Léa Morabito, the radio astronomer who led the project, worked with her team for six years to design a new way to collect, digitize, process and combine the signal from each antenna into photos. According to Dr Morabito, the photos will help astronomers understand how processes like the design of stars and planets work.
(Photo: LK Morabito / DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys)
The images captured by Dr Morabito and his team are 20 times more detailed than a standard LOFAR image, as normal operations only benefit from antennas located in the Netherlands. Thanks to the diligence of astronomers in ensuring that they could pick up signals from all over Europe, the team was able to increase the diameter of its “lens” from 120 km to almost 2,000 km.
(Graphic: LK Morabito et al / DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys)
One of the photos (shown above) shows a galaxy at the center of two jets of bright orange material, the latter of which Dr. Morabito’s team says is the product of a supermassive black hole that creates a gravitational force so strong that it projects mass. return to space. The dark spots on the jet to the right indicate that the jet has gone through periods of relative inactivity before, the team said. These periods lead scientists to believe that black holes go through “sleep cycles”. Although astronomers have known about these cycles before, photographic evidence is a good start to gaining a more intimate understanding of how they work.
The antennas used to take the photos are located in nine European countries. (Graphic: Astron)
“Working on the data for so long and then finally getting such pictures and being the first person to see what it looks like is just amazing,” Dr Morabito told BBC News. “We are really starting to understand how galaxies have evolved. And black holes are an important part of it, because their jets can carry fuel for star formation. And by pushing outward, they can disrupt galaxies. They can even trigger star formation or turn it off and make it happen less.
Now read:
[ad_2]
Source link