H14PI : Most detailed map of Hydrogen atom
Q. Scientists have created the most detailed map of which atoms in the Milky way?- Published on 21 Oct 16a. Hydrogen
b. Oxygen
c. Nitrogen
d. Carbon
ANSWER: Hydrogen
Using two of the world’s largest configurable telescopes, scientists have created the most detailed map of the hydrogen atoms in the Milky way
- It is called HI4PI map; it was produced using data from the Max Planck radio telescope in Germany and the CSIRO radio telescope in Australia
- The image was compiled by more than a million individual observations and 10 billion individual data points
- Researchers looked at the neutral atomic hydrogen– the most abundant element in the cosmos and the main component of stars and galaxies.
- Researchers have pointed out in their new study that the project improves the previous galactic map by a factor of two in terms of sensitivity and a factor of 4 in terms of resolution
- Creating the map came with its challenges.
- Radio “noise” caused by mobile phones and broadcast stations crept into the data, requiring the ICRAR researchers to develop a sophisticated computer algorithm that cleaned each individual data point.
- The new map with a clearer picture of hydrogen will enable astronomers to understand the chemical makeup of the galaxy and answer how the galaxy receives gas to build new stars and where dwarf galaxies might exist in the immediate neighbourhood.
