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See the wonders of the Milky Way in this new infrared map

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The Lobster Nebula seen with ESO’s VISTA telescope.
The Lobster Nebula seen with ESO’s VISTA telescope ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo

The wonders of our galaxy are on full display in a new infrared map of the Milky Way, showing a stunning 1.5 billion objects using data collected over 13 years. Researchers used the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s VISTA telescope to collect 500 terabytes of data, showing the nebulae, globular clusters, stars, planets, brown dwarfs, and other objects that make up our galaxy.

The VISTA telescope (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy), located on the Paranal Observatory in Chile, has an infrared instrument called VIRCAM that is able to look through clouds of dust and gas to observe objects that would be invisible in the visible light wavelength. Since 2010, researchers have been using this instrument to observe the Milky Way. They observed each patch of the sky multiple times, so they could see not only the location of particular objects but also how they were moving over time.

This collage highlights a small selection of regions of the Milky Way imaged as part of the most detailed infrared map ever of our galaxy. Here we see, from left to right and top to bottom: NGC 3576, NGC 6357, Messier 17, NGC 6188, Messier 22 and NGC 3603. All of them are clouds of gas and dust where stars are forming, except Messier 22, which is a very dense group of old stars.
This collage highlights a small selection of regions of the Milky Way imaged as part of the most detailed infrared map ever of our galaxy. Here we see, from left to right and top to bottom: NGC 3576, NGC 6357, Messier 17, NGC 6188, Messier 22 and NGC 3603. All of them are clouds of gas and dust where stars are forming, except Messier 22, which is a very dense group of old stars. ESO/VVVX survey

The full dataset is available on the ESO website, where you can scroll around and zoom in on an incredible map of the galaxy. Some of the objects you can observe include newborn stars nestled inside dusty cocoons, and failed stars called brown dwarfs that are bigger than planets but not large enough to sustain fusion and become full stars.

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“We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever,” said project leader Dante Minniti of Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile in a statement.

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One important part of the data is a more accurate map of the inner region of the Milky Way, which is often obscured by dust and is a busy region full of stars, gas, and the giant black hole at the very center of the galaxy. The researchers also spotted extremely fast-moving stars that had shot off at great speeds after coming close to that supermassive black hole. The survey is now complete, and the researchers hope that the trove of data they are sharing will be the basis of scientific discoveries for decades to come.

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“The project was a monumental effort, made possible because we were surrounded by a great team,” says Roberto Saito, an astrophysicist at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil.

The research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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