Supernova remnants found in most detailed radio image of Milky Way – Astronomy Magazine
To recover that missing information, we turned to a companion project called PEGASUS, led by Ettore Carretti of Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics.
PEGASUS uses the 64m diameter Parkes/Murriyang telescope – one of the largest single-dish radio telescopes in the world – to map the sky.
Even with such a large dish, Parkes has rather limited resolution. By combining the information from both Parkes and ASKAP, each fills in the gaps of the other to give us the best fidelity image of this region of our Milky Way galaxy. This combination reveals the radio emission on all scales to help uncover the missing supernova remnants.
Linking the datasets from EMU and PEGASUS will allow us to reveal more hidden gems. In the next few years we will have an unprecedented view of almost the entire Milky Way, about a hundred times larger than this initial image, but with the same level of detail and sensitivity.
We estimate there may be up to 1,500 or more new supernova remnants yet to discover. Solving the puzzle of these missing remnants will open new windows into the history of our Milky Way.
ASKAP and Parkes are owned and operated by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, as part of the Australia Telescope National Facility. CSIRO acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji people as the Traditional Owners and native title holders of Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, where ASKAP is located, and the Wiradjuri people as the traditional owners of the Parkes Observatory.
Andrew Hopkins, Professor of Astronomy, Macquarie University
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