The CSIRO radio telescope maps three million galaxies in a record survey in the southern sky

An Australian radio telescope has conducted a record-breaking survey of the southern sky, mapping three million galaxies – about a million of which have never been seen before – in just two weeks.

It is the first time that CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a radio telescope located about 370 kilometers northeast of Geraldton, Western Australia, has been thoroughly tested and the results have been considered a game changer. for astronomers.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) created a “Google Map” of the Universe from 903 radio images in 300 hours.

In the past, similar investigations have taken years to complete.

CSIRO astronomer and lead author David McConnell said this is a significant milestone for the radio telescope and the scientific community.

“The fact that it was done quickly is quite significant. It’s a game changer,” he said.

“It means we can go back and do it again without much effort, and that gives astronomers the ability to look for things that have changed.

“Most things are the same from year to year, but some of them change quite dramatically.

The survey was designed to test the telescope systems to ensure it can meet the high-performance computing requirements for the future Square Kilometer Array.

‘Census’ of the stars

Located inside the silent Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory (MRO), ASKAP’s wide field of view, generated by 36 CSIRO-designed satellite dishes and receivers, allows it to quickly take highly detailed panoramic images of the sky and detect light faint from very far away.

While the survey took only 15 minutes to observe every part of the sky, the final images reveal twice the level of detail than the previous survey results.

Each of the 903 images contains 2,000-4,000 objects, with the survey covering 83% of the sky.

Dr. McConnell described the final image as a “census” of the universe, including the remains of exploded stars, pulsars and nearby planets.

He said the data would be used by astronomers around the world to unlock the secrets of the universe.

“They’ve already looked at the images, particularly for stars in our galaxy that may be active,” he said.

“The sun, our star, occasionally emits bursts of radio emissions that can interfere with our terrestrial radio communications.

The 13.5 exabytes of raw data generated by the telescope was processed and reconstructed using CSIRO’s custom software ASKAPsoft at the Pawsey Supercomputing Center in Kensington, Western Australia.

Dr. McConnell said seeing the images for the time was “fascinating”.

“Normally you have to wait a long time to see another piece of heaven, but these came out one after another,” he said.

“Seeing all of these springs with their strange shapes is just fantastic, even astounding for an astronomer used to thinking about how big the universe is.”

No signs of intelligent life

Although no alien life was detected during the survey, the occasional star with unusual radio emission activity was detected.

Dr. McConnell said the team doesn’t expect to find any evidence of aliens with the telescope, but nothing has been ruled out.

“I would be very surprised,” he said.

“I wouldn’t rule out anything, but I have to give a very low probability.”