Chinese astronomers discover 1,300 new quasars hidden behind Milky Way’s galactic plane

A team of Chinese astronomers has made a breakthrough by identifying over 1,300 new quasars hidden behind the Milky Way’s dense galactic plane using China’s Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). This is reported by CGTN, a partner of TV BRICS.

Quasars – the extraordinarily luminous cores of distant active galaxies – are key to understanding the large-scale structure of the universe, supermassive black holes, cosmic reionisation, and the formation and evolution of galaxies. However, due to high dust concentrations and dense star fields within the galactic plane, locating quasars in this region has long posed a challenge for astronomers.

In a major advance, researchers conducted a detailed spectroscopic survey using LAMOST. They identified a total of 1,982 quasars, including 1,338 newly discovered ones.

Experts claimed that this new collection of quasars will fill a crucial gap in the spatial mapping of known quasars near the Galactic plane. Furthermore, the data will aid in the creation of an astrometric reference frame for accurately charting the positions and motions of celestial objects.

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