Giant Radio Map Reveals Our Milky Way in a Whole New Light

The Milky Way is a rich and complex environment. We see it as a luminous line stretching across the night sky, composed of innumerable stars.

But that's just the visible light. Observing the sky in other ways, such as through radio waves, provides a much more nuanced scene – full of charged particles and magnetic fields.

For decades, astronomers have used radio telescopes to explore our galaxy. By studying the properties of the objects residing in the Milky Way, we can better understand its evolution and composition.

Our study, published today in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , provides new insights into the structure of our galaxy's galactic plane.

Observing the entire sky

To reveal the radio sky, we used the Murchison Widefield Array, a radio telescope in