Astronomers Unveil the First-Ever Map of the Milky Way's Graveyard

The Milky Way is brimming with millions of cosmic objects, it is basically the birthplace of stars and also their graveyard once they die. These dead stars remain in the galaxy, making the Milky Way a cosmic cemetery.

Huge stars that died billions of years ago in the Milky Way went supernova and changed into two different kinds of objects. The remaining cores either entered the afterlife as highly compact neutron stars or fell in on themselves to form black holes, according to Space.com.

Scientists refer to the remnants of these ancient stars as the "galactic underworld," which has kept the majority of its mysteries hidden up to this point.

But now, the first digital map of the cosmic underworld has been produced by astronomers after effectively turning back time to observe how and when these early stars were formed, lived, and died, as reported first by Space.com.

Ancient Star's Bones

The astronomers were able to achieve this by looking at observations of dead stars distributed around the galaxy, like neutron stars and black holes, and determining their origin and evolutionary history.

They discovered a huge cosmic cemetery that was three times the current height of the Milky Way.

The new map, which was produced by astronomer David Sweeney and his associates at the University of Sydney, not only shows the potential locations of these ancient stars' bones but also indicates that about one-third of the scattered remnants have already left the galaxy or are on the verge of doing so.

Estimating Supernovas

It is worth noting that supernovas release enormous, erratic amounts of energy that can propel gas and dust at speeds of millions of miles per hour. It is almost impossible to forecast where energy will be produced in higher or lower volumes, as per Space.com.

The research team had a particularly tough time estimating the energy ejected in each supernova burst. The star's gas and dust will be launched farther than nearby globules of star material if it is ejected in a region where it is exerting more force.

"The hardest problem I had to solve in hunting down their true distribution was to account for the 'kicks' they receive in the violent moments of their creation. Supernova explosions are asymmetric, and the remnants are ejected at high speed - up to millions of kilometers per hour - and, even worse, this happens in an unknown and random direction for every object," Sweeney said in a statement.

Stellar Necropolis

Together with Dr. Sanjib Sharma, a University of Sydney Research Fellow, and Dr. Ryosuke Hirai, a professor at Monash University, they created complex models that stored the locations of the stars' births, fiery deaths, and final dispersal as the galaxy expanded.

The result is a distribution map of the stellar necropolis of the Milky Way.

Sweeney said that with the map that they developed, they will also be creating technologies to hunt for more objects in the Milky Way.

"I'm betting that the 'galactic underworld' won't stay shrouded in mystery for very much longer," Sweeney added.

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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla