The Heart of the Milky Way: Article Review

Christian Ferrandina 

The article “The heart of the Milky Way looks like contemporary art in this new radio image” by Lisa Grossman really expresses the natural beauty of our universe and our galaxy being expressed in a single image. Scientists were able to construct this image based on radio signals taken by the Meerkat telescope in South Africa after observing it for 200 hours. Scientists say that the radio waves they are receiving are from supernova blasts. It is theorized that Supernovae occur when dark matter collects within a star causing gravity to take over and results in the collapse of the star. As space telescopes continue to improve we will be able to better observe our universe. For example in 1980 scientists first observed the wispy looking radio filaments shown in the image but could not gather enough information to come to a conclusion. Today our telescopes are able to observe different galaxies farther and farther away and are able to take more accurate measurements resulting in images like the one shown. As technology continues to improve scientists will be able to observe more of the natural beauty of the universe.

I believe that the article “The heart of the Milky Way looks like contemporary art in this new radio image” by Lisa Grossman provides clear evidence to how scientists form images of space based on the radio waves received from other parts of our galaxy. After observing the images that the scientists had to offer, I came to the realization that space is filled with beautiful natural phenomena with explosions of light happening all around us. This discovery allowed for the formation of many more accurate pictures of space by gathering measurements and putting the puzzle pieces together resulting in an accurate image of space. Not only that, but telescopes allowing us to gather more accurate measurements and images of space allow us to understand many aspects of our universe that we don’t have full understanding of, for example dark matter and accurately predicting the end of our universe.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-way-center-image-radio-emissions-black-hole