New map of the universe reveals 4.4 million radio sources in the northern sky
Nearly 4.4 million radio source were detected by the pan-European telescope LOFAR in almost 144 days.
the LOw Frequency ARray(LOFAR) has released its second batch of data — and it’s even more exciting. An international team has now published results from radio observations between 120 and 168 megahertz from the northern sky.
A burst of data
LOFAR measures 1000 kilometers (621 miles) across, making it the largest radio telescope that operates at low frequencies (below 250 MHz).
The survey covered 27% of the northern sky, and the team estimates that 67% to 85% of the region will be observed by May 2023.It’s a large-scale, unprecedented view of the Universe seen in radio waves.
After everything studied, Astronomers concluded that they coukd detect 4,396,228 radio sources.In these radio sources some could be galaxies having massive blackholes, since active galactic nuclei (AGN) are a source of radio waves, Or bright stars.
Some objects are too much away from the Earth, even billions of light years away from Earth.Some are already known by scientists which includes W3/W4/HB3 are star forming regions and Cygnus loop supernova remnant.
This is only 27% of the entire survey and this lead to more scientific discoveries in the future, how black holes form and evolve, how universe grow and many more
The telescope array spent 3,451 hours looking at the sky to generate the latest data, producing a whopping 7.6 petabytes of archives.
However, LOFAR has tons of data to classify, and computers aren’t always enough for the job — and you can help.By visiting Zooniverse website identify galaxies and supermassive blackholes,
If you don't know how to do it then don't worry, they have small totorial in which you can learn how to classify radio sources.Once you finish the totorial, you can start exploring the universe.