14 DAY TRIAL // Just days ago, astronomers released a new image documenting the anatomy of the Milky Way. The image, available next to this article, shows the distribution of gas, charged particles, and space dust across our cosmic home.
Hence, the NASA scientists who worked on creating it and fellow researchers describe it as a map of the Milky Way or, better yet, a strikingly colorful portrait of our home galaxy.
It is understood that the red in this image shows cosmic dust that gives off a thermal glow. The yellow and the blue, on the other hand, show carbon monoxide gas and radiation produced by fast-moving electrons caught in the Milky Way's magnetic field, respectively.
Lastly, the color green shows the distribution of electrons and protons moving swiftly and in an uncontrolled way. These particles occasionally come very close to colliding but, at the end of the day, keep their independence. Hence, the radiation they produce is dubbed free-free.
To get a better idea of how the gas, the charged particles, and the dust that comprise the Milky Away are distributed across this galaxy, be sure to also have a look at the broken-down portrait below.
In case anyone was wondering, there is more to such space maps than the fact that they are pretty cool to look at. Thus, images like this one first and foremost serve to predict star formation patterns based on the behavior of the cosmic ingredients that go into making such celestial bodies.
