A little-studied region of the sky may be hiding a big surprise, according to a newly released study. Scientists working at the National University of San Juan in Argentina have probed the so-called “zone of avoidance” to discover what appears to be a new galactic cluster. Of course, the cluster isn’t new — we’ve just never been able to see it before.
The zone of avoidance (ZoA) is the region obscured from view by the central bulge of our Milky Way galaxy. This area is too dense with stars, gas, and dust for most instruments to peer through to the other side, and it accounts for between 10 and 20 percent of the sky. That’s a lot of the cosmos to remain hidden from view, but the technology we use to observe the universe is improving.
Astronomers at the National University of San Juan working on the VVV Survey used the European Southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) in Chile to follow up on previous work that suggested there may be a large structure on the opposite side of the ZoA. While visible light is totally blocked by the core of the Milky Way, lower-frequency infrared light can get through. It’s similar to how the James Webb Space Telescope can see more stars in the Pillars of Creation than Hubble because it operates in the infrared.
Five galaxies identified in the Zone of Avoidance that astronomers believe represent a larger cluster of galaxies.
The team published a new preprint study this week on the Arxiv server, featuring observations of a galaxy cluster dubbed VVVGCl-B J181435-381432. Yes, it’s not a very snazzy name. Previously, the infrared glow captured in the VVV Survey suggested an “overdensity” region in the ZoA, reports Vice. The team, led by astronomer Daniela Galdeano, believed this was evidence of an extragalactic structure that had not yet been identified. According to the study, the data collected with VISTA is in good agreement with what scientists expect for near-infrared observations of galaxy clusters.
So far, we only have hints of what truly exists on the other side of the galactic core. Using the Gemini South telescope (also in Chile) and its FLAMINGOS-2 infrared detector, the team zoomed in to measure the redshift of five probable galaxies. These galaxies appear to be roughly three billion light years away. The researchers think this represents just a sliver of the full cluster. While the results have yet to be confirmed, teams around the world will no doubt start taking a closer look at this previously ignored region of the sky.
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