Astronomers have used radio-waves to peer through the galactic mass and stardust of the Milky Way, and in so doing, have discovered 100 of nearby galaxies previously hidden from view.
Some 883 galaxies – a third of which had never been seen before – were observed by scientists using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in Australia. While the former 'hidden galaxies' are located about 250 million light-years away from Earth, their comparative closeness in astronomical terms effectively means our own local neighborhood of space just got a complete lot more crowded.
"The Milky Way is extremely beautiful of course and it's very motivating to study our own galaxy, but it totally blocks out the view of the more distant galaxies behind it," said astronomer Lister Staveley-Smith of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at the University of Western Australia.
The new-found galaxies lie inside an area known as the region of Avoidance, so called because our view of this region of space has always been obstructed by the planets and stars that make up the Milky Way. Astronomers have been trying to map the galactic distribution there for decades without success, but thanks to the Parkes radio telescope's receiver, that's no longer the case.
Some 883 galaxies – a third of which had never been seen before – were observed by scientists using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in Australia. While the former 'hidden galaxies' are located about 250 million light-years away from Earth, their comparative closeness in astronomical terms effectively means our own local neighborhood of space just got a complete lot more crowded.
"The Milky Way is extremely beautiful of course and it's very motivating to study our own galaxy, but it totally blocks out the view of the more distant galaxies behind it," said astronomer Lister Staveley-Smith of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at the University of Western Australia.
The new-found galaxies lie inside an area known as the region of Avoidance, so called because our view of this region of space has always been obstructed by the planets and stars that make up the Milky Way. Astronomers have been trying to map the galactic distribution there for decades without success, but thanks to the Parkes radio telescope's receiver, that's no longer the case.
"We've used a range of techniques but only radio observations have really succeeded in allowing us to see through the thickest foreground layer of dust and stars," said researcher Renée Kraan-Korteweg from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. "An average galaxy contains Hundred billion stars, so finding 100 of new galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way points to a lot of mass we didn't know about until now."
And that huge quantity of mass could help scientists to understand a cosmic phenomenon taking place within the Zone of Avoidance. The Great Attractor, as it's known by scientists, is a mysterious region of space that appears to be drawing the Milky Way – in addition to hundreds of 1000 of other galaxies – toward it.
This irregularity, which scientists consider equate to the gravitational force of a million billion Suns, has mystified astronomers since it was opening discovered back in the 1970s, & the fresh data on the hidden galaxies might help explain what's leaving on.
"We don't in fact understand what's causing this gravitational speeding up on the Milky Way or where it's upcoming from," supposed Staveley-Smith. "We know that in this area there are a few extremely large collection of galaxies we call cluster or superclusters, & our whole Milky Way is touching towards them at additional than 2-million kilometres per hour."
The researchers identified a figure of these structures in the middle of the hidden galaxies, and life form able to study them strength help to explain the forces at the back the huge Attractor. The findings, report in The Astronomical Journal, comprise three galaxy concentration – called NW1, NW2, and NW3 – and two fresh galaxy cluster, CW1 and CW2.
And that huge quantity of mass could help scientists to understand a cosmic phenomenon taking place within the Zone of Avoidance. The Great Attractor, as it's known by scientists, is a mysterious region of space that appears to be drawing the Milky Way – in addition to hundreds of 1000 of other galaxies – toward it.
This irregularity, which scientists consider equate to the gravitational force of a million billion Suns, has mystified astronomers since it was opening discovered back in the 1970s, & the fresh data on the hidden galaxies might help explain what's leaving on.
"We don't in fact understand what's causing this gravitational speeding up on the Milky Way or where it's upcoming from," supposed Staveley-Smith. "We know that in this area there are a few extremely large collection of galaxies we call cluster or superclusters, & our whole Milky Way is touching towards them at additional than 2-million kilometres per hour."
The researchers identified a figure of these structures in the middle of the hidden galaxies, and life form able to study them strength help to explain the forces at the back the huge Attractor. The findings, report in The Astronomical Journal, comprise three galaxy concentration – called NW1, NW2, and NW3 – and two fresh galaxy cluster, CW1 and CW2.
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