Indian astronomers have successfully charted invisible sheets of interstellar dust that shroud the Milky Way. New research was conducted by the Department of Science and Technology. This discovery may help reveal where the next generation of stars is being created.
What Scientists Discovered?
The Galaxy is laden with massive clouds of dust and gas that extinguish or block starlight. This is a process known as extinction. Researchers at ARIES, under India’s Department of Science and Technology, led the project using data from more than 6,000 open star clusters. These clusters in the Galactic disc enabled highly accurate mapping of interstellar dust. As starlight darkens and reddens when passing through dust, they serve as ideal tracers.
What is the Reddening Plane?
The study, led by Dr Y. C. Joshi, found that dust is not evenly spread across the Galaxy. Instead, it forms a thin, undulating layer called the “reddening plane”, situated just beneath the Milky Way’s central plane. This layer ripples in a wave-like pattern across the sky. Denser dust was observed near Galactic longitude 41°, while thinner dust appeared near 221°. The Sun itself lies about 50 light-years above this dust band.
What did the analysis reveal?
Researchers found that the Milky Way’s dust layer changes in thickness. It gets denser near the Galactic core and thinner on the edge. It is an uneven spread that highlights the Galaxy’s complex, shifting structure. This offers astronomers valuable clues about the regions where new stars are likely to form.
The study shows the need for more sky checks, mainly of far-off regions, to build a fuller three-dim view of the Milky Way’s dust. New work from Gaia’s next data release and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time will be key in this task.
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