Huge extragalactic structure found hiding behind the Milky Way

A research team made up of members from the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, and Universidad Andres Bello has found evidence of a massive extragalactic assembly hiding behind part of the Milky Way galaxy. While the group awaits publication in the journal, they published a paper describing their findings on the arXiv preprint server. Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Space scientists have known for some time that parts of the night sky are often out of view because of a galactic bulge. Known as the “avoidance zone,” this region makes up about 10% of the dark sky, making researchers wonder what might be behind it. The area is not very well studied, as it offers researchers little to study; therefore, little is known about what it can hide. In this new effort, the researchers used a variety of tools to better understand what could be hidden.

Over the past few years, scientists have used a variety of tools to probe the avoidance zone. With this new effort, the researchers started by pooling all the data collected so far and added more using recent information from the VVV Survey.

The VVV Research is a project supported by an intergovernmental research organization called the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere. It includes numerous state-of-the-art research facilities located at multiple sites. Poll, using stars infrared emissions rather visible light. Such emissions can pass from gas, dust, and light from stars in the bulge and to vehicles set up here on Earth.

while working infrared imagingResearchers have discovered that they can identify several galaxies that exist far beyond the Milky Way. And because of their numbers, the researchers believe that together they form what they describe as one gigantic extragalactic structure. They estimate that there could be as many as 58 galaxies in the structure.

© 2022 Science X Network