New Atlas of the Created Universe – Includes a million galaxies we’ve never seen before

A world-renowned CSIRO radio telescope conducted its first survey of the entire southern sky with record speed and detail, creating a new atlas of the Universe.

The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), developed and operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has mapped around three million galaxies in just 300 hours.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey is like a Google map of the Universe where most of the millions of star-shaped points on the map are distant galaxies – about a million that we’ve never seen before.

CSIRO Executive Director Dr Larry Marshall said ASKAP has brought together a world-class infrastructure with scientific and technical expertise to unlock the deepest secrets of the Universe.

“ASKAP applies the very latest scientific and technological advancements to age-old questions about the mysteries of the Universe and offers astronomers around the world new breakthroughs to solve their challenges,” said Dr. Marshall.

“All of this is made possible by innovative receivers developed by CSIRO that incorporate phased array power technology, which allows ASKAP to generate more raw data at a faster rate than all of Australia’s internet traffic. .

“In an age where we have access to more data than ever before, ASKAP and the supercomputers that support it deliver unparalleled insights and use the tools that underpin our data-driven future to improve the lives of everyone.

Industry, Science and Technology Minister Karen Andrews said ASKAP is another outstanding example of Australia’s world-leading radio astronomy capability.

“ASKAP is a major technological development that puts our scientists, engineers and industry in the driver’s seat to lead deep space discovery for the next generation. This new investigation shows that we are ready to take a giant leap in radio astronomy, ”said Minister Andrews.

The main feature of the telescope is its wide field of view, generated by the new receivers designed by CSIRO, which allow ASKAP to take panoramic photos of the sky in amazing detail.

Using ASKAP from CSIRO’s Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Western Australia hinterland, the investigation team observed 83 percent of the entire sky.

The first results were published on November 30, 2020 in the Astronomical Society of Australia Publications.

This record-breaking result proves that a study of the sky can be completed in weeks rather than years, opening up new opportunities for discovery.

The new data will allow astronomers to undertake statistical analyzes of large populations of galaxies, much as social scientists use information from a national census.

“This census of the Universe will be used by astronomers around the world to explore the unknown and study everything from star formation to how galaxies and their super-massive black holes evolve and interact,” said the Principal author and CSIRO astronomer, Dr. David McConnell.

With ASKAP’s advanced receivers, the RACS team only needed to combine 903 images to form the complete sky map, significantly less than the tens of thousands of images required for the first full-sky radio surveys. produced by the world’s main telescopes.

“For the first time, ASKAP has flexed its muscles, creating a map of the Universe in greater detail than ever before and at record speed. We expect to find tens of millions of new galaxies in future studies, ”said Dr. McConnell.

The 13.5 exabytes of raw data generated by ASKAP was processed using custom-designed hardware and software by CSIRO.

The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre’s “Galaxy” supercomputer converted the data into 2D radio images containing a total of 70 billion pixels.

The final 903 images and media information represent 26 terabytes of data.

Pawsey Executive Director Mark Stickells said high performance computing capacity was a key part of ASKAP’s design.

“The Pawsey Supercomputing Center has worked closely with CSIRO and the ASKAP team since our inception and we pride ourselves on providing critical infrastructure that supports science and has tremendous impact,” said Mr. Stickells.

Images and catalogs from the survey will be made public through the CSIRO Data Access Portal and hosted at Pawsey.

ASKAP’s advanced technologies provide information for the development of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), an international scientific mega-project to build the world’s largest radio telescopes.

CSIRO will house the low frequency SKA telescope at MRO.

CSIRO recognizes the Wajarri Yamaji as the traditional owners of the MRO site.

Reference: “The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey I: Design and first results” by D. McConnell, CL Hale, E. Lenc, JK Banfield, George Heald, AW Hotan, James K. Leung, Vanessa A. Moss, Tara Murphy, Andrew O’Brien [Opens in a new window], Joshua Pritchard, Wasim Raja, Elaine M. Sadler, Adam Stewart, Alec JM Thomson, M. Whiting, James R. Allison, SW Amy, C. Anderson, Lewis Ball, Keith W. Bannister, Martin Bell, Douglas C.- J. Bock, Russ Bolton, JD Bunton, AP Chippendale, JD Collier, FR Cooray, TJ Cornwell, PJ Diamond, PG Edwards, N. Gupta, Douglas B. Hayman, Ian Heywood, CA Jackson, Bärbel S. Koribalski, Karen Lee -Waddell and NM McClure-Griffiths, November 30, 2020, Astronomical Society of Australia Publications.
DOI: 10.1017 / pasa.2020.41