The plane of the Milky Way galaxy as seen by ESA’s Gaia space mission. It contains more than a billion stars, along with darker, dusty regions that Gaia could not see through. With higher sensitivity and longer wavelength coverage, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Galactic Surface Survey will peer into more dust and reveal more stars. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC
NASAThe Roman Telescope will revolutionize our understanding of Earth. milky way Detailed surveys have revealed more than 100 billion cosmic objects and provided new data on the structure of galaxies.
Nancy Grace of NASA roman space telescope A research team has announced an unprecedented study plan for the plane of the Milky Way. It will explore the region deeper than any other survey and map more stars in the galaxy than all previous observations combined.
“This type of research allows us to investigate a huge range of science, from star formation and evolution to interstellar dust and the dynamics of galactic centers,” said Katherine Zucker, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics. ” he said. Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Smithsonian Institution co-authored a white paper that explains some of the benefits of such observation programs.
Although scientists have studied the neighborhood of our solar system in considerable detail, large parts of the galaxy are still hidden from view. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will peer through thick bands of dust to reveal parts of the galaxy previously unexplored, thanks to a newly selected Galactic Plane Survey.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The Galactic Plane Survey was the top-ranked submission following the 2021 call for ideas for the Rome Survey. The scientific community will now help design an observation program ahead of Roman’s launch by May 2027.
“There are many trade-offs, as scientists have to choose between, for example, how much area to cover and how completely to map it with all possible filters. “They will,” said study co-author Robert Benjamin. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Although the details of the survey are still being determined, scientists believe that if the survey covers approximately 1,000 square degrees (an area of the sky equivalent to 5,000 full moons), it will yield well over 100 billion cosmic objects ( It is said that there is a possibility that it may be possible to reveal objects (mainly stars).
“This is pretty close to a complete survey of all the stars in our galaxy, which would take only about a month,” said White Paper Leader and senior researcher at the California Institute of Technology/IPAC in Pasadena, California. said Roberta Palladini. author. “It will take decades for the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope to observe this large area of the sky. Roman will be a research vehicle!”
Anatomy of the Milky Way
Observatories with small fields of view of the universe provide detailed images of other galaxies, revealing their intricate structures. But studying the structure of our galaxy is surprisingly difficult. Because the Milky Way surface covers such a large area of the sky, it can take a very long time to study it in detail. Astronomers also have to peer through thick dust that blocks the light of distant stars.
Although we have studied the solar system’s neighborhood well, “we have a very incomplete picture of what the other half of the Milky Way looks like beyond the galactic center,” Zucker said. says.
Observatories like NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope have conducted extensive surveys of the galactic plane with longer wavelength light, revealing some star-forming regions on the galaxy’s far side. But I couldn’t work out the details like Roman.
“Spitzer set up a problem that Roman would be able to solve,” Benjamin said.
Roman’s combination of wide field of view, sharp resolution, and ability to peer through dust makes it an ideal instrument for studying the Milky Way. And looking at stars at different wavelengths of light, optical and infrared, helps astronomers learn things like the star’s temperature. That single piece of information reveals more data, from the star’s evolutionary stage and composition to its brightness and size.
“We can do very detailed studies of things like star formation and the structure of our galaxy in a way that we can’t do with other galaxies,” Palladini said.
The face-on spiral galaxy, IC 5332, is split diagonally in this image. Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are shown in the upper left, and observations from the Hubble Space Telescope are shown in the lower right. The Webb and Hubble images show a striking contrast: the inversion of darkness and light. why? Webb’s observations combine near-infrared and mid-infrared light, while Hubble’s observations combine visible light and ultraviolet light. Dust absorbs ultraviolet and visible light and re-emits it in the infrared. In Webb’s image, dust can be seen glowing in infrared light. In Hubble’s images, dark areas are where starlight is absorbed by dust.Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), Rupali Chandar (UToledo), PHANGS team
Roman will provide new insights into the structure of the central region known as the bulge, the “bars” that run across it, and the spiral arms that extend from it.
“We’re basically rewriting the 3D picture of the other side of the galaxy,” Zucker said.
Roman’s keen vision helps astronomers observe individual stars, even star nurseries on the far side of the galaxy. This will allow Roman to map 10 times farther than ESA’s previous fine mapping, helping to generate a huge new catalog of stars. european space agency) Gaia Space Mission. Gaia has mapped over 1 billion stars in 3D, mainly within a radius of about 10,000 light years. Roman was able to map up to 100 billion stars located more than 100,000 light-years away (stretching to the farthest edges of our galaxy and beyond).
Roman was the first to announce the study of the galactic plane. General astrophysical survey – One of several observational programs that Roman does in addition to that. Three major community surveys and Demonstration of coronagraph technology. At least 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission will be allocated to general astrophysical research to pursue science that cannot be accomplished with the mission’s core community survey data alone. Astronomers around the world will have the opportunity to use Roman to propose cutting-edge research, and the astronomical community will be able to leverage Roman’s full power to perform amazing science.
Reference: “Rome’s Early Defining Astrophysical Survey Opportunity: Galactic Rome Infrared Surface Survey (GRIPS)”, Roberta Paladini, Catherine Zucker, Robert Benjamin, David Nataf, Dante Minniti, Gail Zasowski, Joshua Peek, Sean Carey, Lori Allen, Javier Alonso – Garcia, João Alves, Friederich Anders, Evangelie Athanasura, Timothy C. Byers, Jonathan Byrd, Jos Brand-Fathone, Anthony Brown, Sven Buder, Luca Casagrande, Andrew Casey, Santi Cassisi, Marcio Cattelan, Ranga-Ram Sharry, André-Nicolas Chain, David Ciardi, Fernando Comerón, Roger Cohen, Thomas Dame, Ronald Drimmel, Jose Fernandez Trincado, Douglas Finkbeiner, Douglas Geisler, Mario Gennaro, Alyssa Goodman, Gregory Green, Gergely Hajdu, Karen Henderson, Joseph Hora, Valentin D. Ivanov, Davey Kirkpatrick, Chiaki Kobayashi. , Michael Kuhn, Andres Kunder, Jessica Lu, Philip W. Lucas, Daniel Majes, S. Thomas Meges, Aaron Meisner, Sergio Molinari, Przemek Mroz, Melis Ness, Nadine Neumeier, Francisco Nogueras-Lara, Alberto Noriega-Crespo, Radek Poleski, Hans-Walter Rix, Luisa Rebl, Enrique Reggiani, Marina Rejukuba, Roberto K. Saito, Ralph Schoenrich, Andrew Saijari, Eugenio Saito Chissano, Edward Schlafly, Keving Schlafman, Lee Smith, Joshua Speegle, Dan With, Rosemary Wise and Nadia Zakamska, July 14, 2023; Astrophysics > Galaxy Astrophysics.
arXiv:2307.07642
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology/IPAC in Southern California, and Space Telescope Science Research in Baltimore. A scientific team of scientists from different countries and locations is participating. research Institute. A major industrial partner is his BAE Systems, Inc. of Boulder, Colorado. L3Harris Technologies (Melbourne, Florida) Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, Thousand Oaks, California.
