AI draws most accurate map of star birthplaces in the Galaxy
140,000 molecular gas clouds--where stars form--locations predicted!
- Date:
- March 1, 2023
- Source:
- Osaka Metropolitan University
- Summary:
- Scientists identified about 140,000 molecular clouds in the Milky Way Galaxy from large-scale data of carbon monoxide molecules, observed in detail by the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers estimated the distance of each of these molecular clouds to determine their size and mass, successfully mapping the distribution of the molecular clouds in the Galaxy in the most detailed manner to date.
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Osaka Metropolitan University scientists identified about 140,000 molecular clouds in the Milky Way Galaxy from large-scale data of carbon monoxide molecules, observed in detail by the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers estimated the distance of each of these molecular clouds to determine their size and mass, successfully mapping the distribution of the molecular clouds in the Galaxy in the most detailed manner to date.
Stars are formed by molecular gas and dust coalescing in space. These molecular gases are so dilute and cold that they are invisible to the human eye, but they do emit faint radio waves that can be observed by radio telescopes.
Observing from Earth, a lot of matter lies ahead and behind these molecular clouds and these overlapping features make it difficult to determine their distance and physical properties such as size and mass.
So, even though our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is the only galaxy close enough to make detailed observations of molecular clouds in the whole universe, it has been very difficult to investigate the physical properties of molecular clouds in a cohesive manner from large-scale observations.
A research team led by Dr. Shinji Fujita from the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Science, identified about 140,000 molecular clouds in the Milky Way Galaxy, which are areas of star formation, from large-scale data of carbon monoxide molecules, observed in detail by the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope. Using artificial intelligence, the research team estimated the distance of each of these molecular clouds, determined their size and mass and successfully mapped their distribution, covering the first quadrant of the Galactic plane, in the most detailed manner to date.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Osaka Metropolitan University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Shinji Fujita, Atsushi M Ito, Yusuke Miyamoto, Yasutomo Kawanishi, Kazufumi Torii, Yoshito Shimajiri, Atsushi Nishimura, Kazuki Tokuda, Toshikazu Ohnishi, Hiroyuki Kaneko, Tsuyoshi Inoue, Shunya Takekawa, Mikito Kohno, Shota Ueda, Shimpei Nishimoto, Ryuki Yoneda, Kaoru Nishikawa, Daisuke Yoshida. Distance determination of molecular clouds in the first quadrant of the Galactic plane using deep learning: I. Method and results. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, 2023; 75 (1): 279 DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psac104
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