Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI and Image courtesy of C. Brogan (NRAO) et alAbout this image:
This figure shows a Very Large Array 90cm image of 40 square degrees of the inner Galactic plane. This image covers about 200 times the area of the full moon and has a resolution of 42 seconds of arc (about the angular size of Jupiter viewed from Earth).
The most prominent sources are the ionized HII regions that form around massive stars and supernova remnants which are leftover from the death throes of massive stars.
From a variety of diagnostics including the number of massive stars in our Galaxy, there should be many more supernova remnants than are currently known.
The purpose of this project was to overcome the observational selection effects such as poor sensitivity and resolution that have long been assumed to be responsible for the dearth of observed supernova remnants.
From this very high fidelity image we have been able to discover 35 previously unknown remnants, a 300% increase for this region of the plane and an overall 15% increase in the total known in the Galaxy.
It has only recently become possible to create such high fidelity images at low radio frequencies (where supernova remnants are brightest) due to significant software improvements and increased computing power.
Investigator(s): Crystal Brogan (NRAO), Yosi Gelfand (CfA), Bryan Gaensler (CfA), Namir Kassim (NRL), Joe Lazio (NRL)
