FRANCE: Now NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), which worked closely with the ESA on the Planck mission, has released a captivating interactive map of the Milky Way using Planck’s data. It combines multiple views of our galaxy, including mapping dust, carbon monoxide gas, magnetic fields and a type of radiation known as “free-free.
“This kind of radiation happens when “isolated electrons and protons careen past one another in a series of near collisions, slowing down but continuing on their own way,” according to the JPL.
You can swoop through the map and set it to show different characteristics of the Milky Way on the Planck website here.
“The cosmic microwave background light is a traveler from far away and long ago,” Charles Lawrence, the US project scientist for the mission at NASA’s JPL, said in a statement. “When it arrives, it tells us about the whole history of our universe.”
To study the CMB, Planck team members needed to remove the light from our galaxy, much of which is the same wavelength as the relic radiation. The team then used that removed light to create the new map. “Light generated from within our galaxy, the same light subtracted from the ancient signal, comes to life gloriously in the new image,” the JPL says. “Gas, dust and magnetic field lines make up a frenzy of activity that shapes how stars form.”
Not only was the space agency able to create the map thanks to the Planck mission, but by analyzing data sent back from the mission the team also discovered a few other things.
