The bright, bubbly blobs seen in this image are supernova remnants – clouds of hot gas and debris that are left behind after the dramatic explosion that occurs at the end of a star’s life. Theoretical models predict that there should be far more of them scattered throughout the Milky Way than astronomers have so far been able to observe. However, this new image, produced using data collected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Parkes Observatory’s radio telescopes, also in Australia, has uncovered more than a dozen supernova remnants that were previously unknown. This suggests there are many more hiding in plain sight elsewhere in the Galaxy.
The image was produced as part of a collaboration between the Australia National Science Agency’s Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) project and the PEGASUS radio telescope survey, which is led by Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics.