In the realm of energy and space science, a team of researchers from Caltech, the University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions have been working on a project that could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the galactic center and its energy dynamics. The team, led by Selina F. Yang and Sophie M. McAtee, has been focusing on the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME), a tool designed to map the distribution of energy and matter in our galaxy.
The researchers recently presented their findings from the 2021-2022 commissioning run of TIME, which aimed to verify the instrument’s capabilities for future line-intensity mapping. The team used an observation of Jupiter to calibrate the detector gains and pointing offsets, and then processed the data from the Sagittarius A (Sgr A) region, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The data was processed using a purpose-built pipeline that removed correlated noise and identified systematic errors.
The resulting frequency-resolved maps revealed strong emissions from carbon monoxide (CO) and a continuum component that discriminated between free-free emission in the circumnuclear disk (CND) and thermal dust emission in the molecular clouds. The team also compared the broadband continuum flux with the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) and found agreement to within 5% in high-SNR molecular clouds in the Sgr A region. From the CO line detections, the team estimated a molecular hydrogen mass of between 5.4 and 5.7 million solar masses, consistent with prior studies.
The practical applications of this research for the energy sector are not immediately apparent, as the study is primarily focused on astrophysics and our understanding of the universe. However, the development of advanced mapping technologies like TIME could have broader implications for energy exploration and monitoring. For instance, similar technologies could be used to map and monitor energy resources on Earth, such as oil, gas, and mineral deposits, or to monitor the distribution of energy in the atmosphere and oceans. The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
This article is based on research available at arXiv.