With new algorithms and supercomputers, an extremely detailed radio map of the universe was developed. Now astronomers can look at radio data of galaxies with far more accuracy. This was released in Nature Astronomy by Leiden PhD student Frits Sweijen and associates.
” This single map has nearly as lots of pixels as previous maps of the whole sky had,” states Frits Sweijen, PhD student at Leiden Observatory. The scientists solved the blurring effect of UV radiation in our environment: with special software they managed to fix for this disturbance. Supercomputers in Leiden and Amsterdam utilized their enormous computing power to ensure that this likewise went fairly quickly.
In Leiden, the just recently developed Academic Leiden Interdisciplinary Cluster Environment (ALICE) supplied its computing power. In Amsterdam, ICT cooperation SURF offered early access to their brand-new Spider platform, which has been specifically set up for data-intensive projects such as this research.
Next strategy: the whole northern sky
The information correction of the LOFAR field of vision was carried out in 25 areas, each one complete moon in size. This took seven days per location. On a single computer, it would have taken 7 times 25, or 175 days, to create the entire map. Thanks to the large-scale facilities of SURF and Leiden with parallel computing power, it took only seven days. That means there is now a fast method to eventually map the entire Northern sky in equivalent information, something Sweijen states might start in the next couple of years.
” We can now study the advancement of great voids and the galaxies in which they are discovered in higher detail than in the past,” he says. “Galaxies in the earlier universe, for example, which due to their range or young age were formerly too small to see in any detail, can now be seen sharply by the thousands.”
Referral: “Deep sub-arcsecond wide-field imaging of the Lockman Hole field at 144 MHz” by F. Sweijen, R. J. van Weeren, H. J. A. Röttgering, L. K. Morabito, N. Jackson, A. R. Offringa, S. van der Tol, B. Veenboer, J. B. R. Oonk, P. N. Best, M. Bondi, T. W. Shimwell, C. Tasse and A. P. Thomson, 27 January 2022, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/ s41550-021-01573-z.
Five by five complete moons
Within the foreseeable future, the new method could therefore bring the whole northern sky into sharp focus. Now the scientists show just a little part, Sweijen discusses: “Suppose you see a square of 5 by 5 moons in the sky. From that cube of space, we made a map of almost 7 billion pixels, on which practically 2,500 galaxies are greatly visible.”
The 4 galaxies on the left in the image are much sharper in concentrate on the new map (right). Credit: Leiden University
Cellular phone on Mars
Sweijen: “The map of area was made on the basis of radio waves that we caught from area with the International LOFAR Telescope. This is an enormous radio telescope with 10s of thousands of antennas spread out throughout a European area with a diameter of 2000 kilometers. Those antennas listen for cosmic radio rays.”
He continues: “Because of its enormous area and many antennas, LOFAR can see radiation in charming detail, with a sensitivity that would even permit you to identify a mobile phone on Mars.” The information from the telescope can be seen by human beings after translation by a computer system into a radiation map, a sort of photo.
Waves smear the signal
This ionosphere disrupts radio waves from space prior to the telescope picks them up. Software application recently developed by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON corrected the determined radiation over the whole area. This permitted us to focus and map LOFARs whole field of view.”
” We can now study the evolution of great voids and the galaxies in which they are discovered in higher detail than before.”
With new algorithms and supercomputers, an exceptionally detailed radio map of the universe was created.” This single map has almost as many pixels as previous maps of the entire sky had,” says Frits Sweijen, PhD student at Leiden Observatory. From that cube of space, we made a map of almost 7 billion pixels, on which practically 2,500 galaxies are greatly visible.”
Sweijen: “The map of space was made on the basis of radio waves that we recorded from area with the International LOFAR Telescope. That means there is now a fast way to eventually map the whole Northern sky in equivalent detail, something Sweijen says could begin in the next couple of years.