Professor Leah Morabito from our top-rated Physics Department has played a key role in an international project that has produced the sharpest and most detailed image yet of the low-frequency radio sky.
Professor Morabito is a co-author of the research, which has revealed almost 63,000 radio sources across a region of the sky around 25 times larger than the full Moon.
The image, created using the European Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, offers scientists an unprecedented view of distant galaxies and the powerful black holes at their centres.
Professor Morabito's contribution has been to create the project's final scientific catalogue, containing 63,000 galaxies.
This was a significant undertaking because of the complexity and scale of the data.
However, the completed catalogue will provide an important resource for astronomers around the world.
It will be the starting point for researchers wanting to explore the new observations, helping them investigate how galaxies form and change over time.
Professor Morabito said: "I am looking forward to using this new resource for my own research, to study how galaxies co-evolve with the super-massive black holes that live at their centres.”
The image is around 20 times sharper than previous observations of the same region.
It reveals different features within distant galaxies, including powerful jets of material driven by supermassive black holes.
It also allows scientists to study galaxies where new stars are forming. Radio observations are particularly valuable because radio waves can pass through the dust that often hides these processes from other telescopes.
The research team collected more than 200 hours of observations, producing an enormous 400-terabyte dataset.
The new observations have been made publicly available, allowing astronomers internationally to combine them with data from other telescopes.
Professor Morabito's catalogue will help researchers make the most of this valuable resource and support new discoveries about the evolution of galaxies across the history of the universe.
The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Our Department of Physics is ranked joint 67th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and fourth in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2027. Visit our Physics webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
/filters:quality(70)/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/central-news-and-events-images/83431-1920X290.jpg)