Scientists Capture First Complete, Clear Image of Milky Way's Galactic Center

Liverpool. Space scientists have captured the first complete and clear image of the vast empire of gas and dust at the center of our own galaxy. This international project, named 'AS2000', has shown the distribution of gases, known as raw materials for star and planet formation, in 3D technology.

Previously, only small fragments of the galaxy were studied, but for the first time, a top-down map of the entire center has been created. According to Professor Steven Longmore of Liverpool John Moores University, this achievement is like mapping an entire city from a helicopter rather than taking photos of different corners of a large city.

This depicts the actual state of the Central Molecular Zone located in the middle of the galaxy. This region is much hotter, denser, and more turbulent than the areas closer to Earth.

• The Mystery of Blue and Red Colors

The colors seen in the published map are not the actual colors visible to the human eye. Scientists have used different colors to understand the movement and chemical composition of the gas. Red indicates turbulence caused by the collision of massive gas clouds, while blue indicates calm and stable regions.

In this map, scientists have found more than 70 different types of molecules, including complex organic compounds ranging from hydrogen to methanol and ethanol.

At the center of the galaxy lies a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*, which is four million times larger than our Sun. Just as water swirls around a drain before going down in a bathtub, gas clouds are swirling around this black hole. According to scientists, this region looks like the universe billions of years ago.

Professor Longmore calls this a laboratory provided by the cosmos. The state of the gas when our solar system was forming about 4.5 billion years ago is similar to the gas currently seen at the center of the galaxy. Therefore, scientists expect that studying this map will reveal how the Earth and the solar system were formed and where the elements necessary for life's proteins came from.