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See an Amazing New Photo of the Milky Way Galaxy

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An image of the Milky Way, released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy. The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves — and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys.
An image of the Milky Way, released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy. The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves — and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys.ESO/APEX/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/ESA/Planck
By Maya Rhodan

A telescope in Chile has captured some of the most detailed photos of the Milky Way galaxy from the southern hemisphere.

The Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment telescope, known as APEX, just completed a survey of the galaxy during which it mapped the galactic plane that is visible from the southern hemisphere. In its quest, the telescope was able to map an area four times the size of previous surveys and showcases the galaxy’s cold gas. It also includes a bevy of star formations.

APEX, which is run in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory, is located 5100 m above sea level on Chiles’s Chajnantor Plateau in Chile’s Atacama region.

The Observatory’s Leonardo Testi says the latest survey allowed scientists to have a ” new and transformational look at the dense interstellar medium of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.”

“The new release of the full survey opens up the possibility to mine this marvelous dataset for new discoveries, Testi said in a statement.

 

 

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