actually dust in the galaxy and beyond that has been polarized,” the JPL
says of this recently released map of the universe. It shows light in
the 353GHz range, wavelengths longer than our eyes can see.
ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech
From 2009 to late 2013, the European Space Agency’s Planck
spacecraft revolved around our planet while using its telescope to soak
up relic radiation from the Big Bang known as the Cosmic Microwave
Background, or CMB. Its goal, in effect, was to look back in time to
just about 370,000 years after the Big Bang.
Now NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Lab (JPL), which worked closely with the ESA on the Planck
mission, has released a captivating interactive map of the Milky Way
using Planck’s data. It combines multiple views of our galaxy, including
mapping dust, carbon monoxide gas, magnetic fields and a type of
radiation known as “free-free.” This kind of radiation happens when
“isolated electrons and protons careen past one another in a series of
near collisions, slowing down but continuing on their own way,”
according to the JPL.
You can swoop through the map and set it to show different characteristics of the Milky Way on the Planck website at planck.ipac.caltech.edu/wwt/
map (top) is made up of several different views of the Milky Way: Dust
Glow (upper left); Carbon Monoxide Gas (upper right); Carbon Monoxide
Gas (upper right); and Magnetic Fields (lower right).
ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The cosmic microwave background light is a traveler from far away and long ago,” Charles Lawrence, the US project scientist for the mission at NASA’s JPL, said in a statement. “When it arrives, it tells us about the whole history of our universe.”
To study the CMB,
Planck team members needed to remove the light from our galaxy, much of
which is the same wavelength as the relic radiation. The team then used
that removed light to create the new map. “Light generated from within
our galaxy, the same light subtracted from the ancient signal, comes to
life gloriously in the new image,” the JPL says. “Gas, dust and magnetic
field lines make up a frenzy of activity that shapes how stars form.”
Not only was the space agency able to create the map thanks to the
Planck mission, but by analyzing data sent back from the mission the
team also discovered a few other things.
First, it was once
believed that the Dark Ages of our universe — a time before stars began
winking into existence — lasted for 300 million to 400 million years
after the Big Bang. Looking at the Planck data, however, researchers now
believe that the period of darkness lasted for about 550 million years.
Even more compelling was a revelation about dark energy,
an as-yet-unproven force that scientists believe is responsible for the
accelerating speed of the universe’s expansion. “The Planck data also
support the idea that the mysterious force known as dark energy is
acting against gravity to push our universe apart at ever-increasing
speeds,” the JPL said.
The Planck team will continue analyzing
the data, and it’s expected that more insights about the origin and
nature of our universe will be published next year. “The kind of
questions we ask now we never would have thought possible to even ask
decades ago, long before Planck,” said James Bartlett, a US Planck team
member from JPL.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/xda_GlaZC3Q/new-interactive-map-of-milky-way-lets.html
New interactive map of Milky Way lets you see the light (and dust)
No comments:
Post a Comment