Astronomy Picture of the Day
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2025 April 14
The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT
Image Credit:
,
,
,
,
,
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J. Bally (CU), R. Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), I. Heywood (Oxford)
Explanation:
What's happening at the center of our galaxy?
It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since
is blocked by intervening interstellar dust.
In other bands of light, though, such as
, the
can be imaged and shows itself to be quite an
.
The shows an image of our Milky Way's center by the
of 64 radio dishes in
.
Spanning four times the angular size of
(2 ),
the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed.
are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix of Sgr,
since the
is in the direction of the
.
In our galaxy's center lies
,
found here in the image center, which houses the
.
Other sources in the image are not as well understood, including
, just to the left of
, and numerous filamentary threads.
The
shows a small patch recently imaged in
with the
to
the effects of magnetic fields on star formation.
Open Science:
Tomorrow's picture: star cylinder
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Authors & editors:
() &
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NASA Official: Amber Straughn
.
,
,
;
A service of:
at
/
,
&
Mary
Live long and prosper
