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Astronomers have create the most detailed infrared map of theMilky Way — and it contains more than 1.5 billion objects .
Made using 13 year of observations across 420 night , the new mathematical function charts a vast number of star , " failed " dark-brown dwarfs , free - floating planets and hypervelocity suns launch into place after closelipped encounters with our galaxy ’s central supermassiveblack hollow .
VISTA scans the sky above Chile’s Atacama desert.
The phonograph record - breaking map was stitched together from 200,000 simulacrum captured by the European Southern Observatory ’s ( ESO ) Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy ( VISTA ) scope in Chile . The researchers release their findings Sept. 26 . in the journalAstronomy & Astrophysics .
" We made so many discoveries , we have changed the sight of our Galaxy forever , " projection lead and study co - authorDante Minniti , an astrophysicist at Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile , said in a affirmation .
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To make the mapping , the astronomers used the VISTA InfraRed CAMera ( VIRCAM ) , an infrared camera which peered through the dust and gas permeating theMilky Wayto discover radiation from previously unnoticed reference .
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This enabled the telescope to foot up the infrared glow from " failed stars " — objects that straddle the pedigree between gargantuan major planet and pocket-sized stars , also known as brown dwarfs — and gravitationally unboundrogue planetson hundreds of nights between 2010 and 2023 . repetition observation made in each region of the sky also enabled the squad to track how objective move and how their brightness level changed over metre .
The leave dataset is monolithic : covering an area of sky equivalent to the breadth of 8600 full moons and containing about 10 times more object thanthe map the same teamreleased in 2012 . Now that it has been completed , the researchers will look upgrades to VISTA and ESO ’s Very Large Telescope that will enable them to break incoming light down into its component spectrum so that they can better understand the chemic makeup of the newly chance upon objects .
