**The Milky Way in Unprecedented Radio Color: A New Map of Our Home Galaxy**
The Milky Way is our home galaxy, glowing not just in visible light but across the entire electromagnetic spectrum — including radio waves. These radio waves allow astronomers to explore various properties of our universe, such as the birth and death of stars. Now, a groundbreaking new map reveals our Milky Way in unprecedented radio color, highlighting emissions from dead stars in orange and star-forming regions in blue.
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### A Milestone in Radio Astronomy
On October 29, 2025, astronomers from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) unveiled the largest low-frequency radio color image of the Milky Way ever assembled. This spectacular mosaic captures the Southern Hemisphere view of our galaxy across a wide range of radio wavelengths, or “colors” of radio light.
The image offers astronomers novel ways to explore the birth, evolution, and death of stars in our galaxy with greater detail than ever before.
Watch a video explaining the new radio map of our Milky Way galaxy [link].
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### Behind the Image: Surveys and Technology
The team published their study on October 28, 2025, in the peer-reviewed *Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia*. The creation of this image involved extensive data processing using supercomputers at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.
The data was collected over hundreds of nights using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope, located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara — the CSIRO Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.
The new map combines data from two key surveys:
– **GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM):** Spanning 28 nights in 2013 and 2014.
– **GLEAM eXtended (GLEAM-X):** Conducted over 113 nights from 2018 to 2020.
Compared to the previous GLEAM image released in 2019, this new map offers twice the resolution, ten times the sensitivity, and covers twice the area, providing a significant leap in radio imaging of the Milky Way.
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### Insights Into the Life Cycle of Stars
Dr. Mantovanini, a lead researcher on the project, shared:
*“This vibrant image delivers an unparalleled perspective of our galaxy at low radio frequencies. It provides valuable insights into the evolution of stars, including their formation in various regions, how they interact with other celestial objects, and ultimately, their demise.”*
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### Spotting Supernova Remnants
A particular focus of Mantovanini’s research is supernova remnants — the expanding clouds of gas and energy left behind when a star explodes at the end of its life. While hundreds of these remnants have already been discovered, astronomers believe thousands more remain hidden.
Thanks to the new image, astronomers can distinguish between gas surrounding newborn stars and the remnants of dead stars with much clearer patterns. Mantovanini explained:
*“You can clearly identify remnants of exploded stars, represented by large red circles. The smaller blue regions indicate stellar nurseries where new stars are actively forming.”*
Additionally, the image may help unravel mysteries about pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars — by measuring their brightness across different GLEAM-X frequencies, aiding understanding of how pulsars emit radio waves and where they reside in our galaxy.
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### A Catalog of 98,000 Radio Sources
Associate Professor Natasha Hurley-Walker, principal investigator of the GLEAM-X survey, emphasized the importance of this achievement:
*“This low-frequency image allows us to unveil large astrophysical structures in our galaxy that are difficult to observe at higher frequencies. No low-frequency radio image of the entire Southern Galactic Plane has been published before, making this an exciting milestone in astronomy.”*
The team cataloged an impressive 98,000 radio sources visible from the Southern Hemisphere across the galactic plane. These sources include a diverse mix of pulsars, planetary nebulae, compact HII regions (dense, ionized gas clouds), and distant galaxies unrelated to the Milky Way.
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### Looking Ahead: The Future of Radio Astronomy
This milestone image currently represents the pinnacle of low-frequency radio imaging of our galaxy. However, the SKA Observatory’s SKA-Low telescope — the world’s largest radio telescope, currently under construction on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia — is expected to surpass this with even greater sensitivity and resolution when completed in the next decade.
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### Bottom Line
Astronomers have released the largest low-frequency radio color image of the Milky Way to date, offering unprecedented insights into the structure and life cycle of our home galaxy. This new view of the Milky Way opens exciting possibilities for understanding the cosmos.
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*Source: GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array survey eXtended (GLEAM-X) III: Galactic Plane*
Published by the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), October 29, 2025.
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https://earthsky.org/space/milky-way-galaxy-radio-color-map/