In a article today in the Sydney Morning Herald, Marcus Strom reports
on the detection of 883 galaxies within 250 million light years
from Earth that had been difficult to detect until now because they
had been obscured by the dust and gas of the Milky Way in the direction
of what is termed "The Zone of Avoidance". One third of these galaxies
have never been seen before and the remainder had only been seen
as smudges.
The discoveries were made by Professor Lister Staveley-Smith and a team
at the University of Western Australia using the 21-centimetre
multibeam receiver developed by CSIRO for the Parkes radio telescope.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Marcus Strom, Sydney Morning Herald
This receiver is able to observe astronomical phenomena invisible or obscured in visible light by tracking the very narrow frequency range of photons emitted by neutral hydrogen atoms as they flip their spin.
While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, this 21-centimetre wavelength emission is still very faint. This is because, on average, a hydrogen atom only flips its spin every 10 million years.
|
The work is described in The Astronomical Journal in a paper
entitled "THE PARKES H I ZONE OF AVOIDANCE SURVEY" by
Staveley-Smith et. al.
Abstract -
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...-6256/151/3/52
Sydney Morning Herald article here -
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...08-gmo73p.html
