It is reported that interstellar dust is an important part of the Milky Way, and its distribution and characteristics directly affect our understanding of the structure, formation and evolution of the Milky Way.Due to the absorption and scattering effects of dust on starlight, the luminosity and color of observed objects will change. Therefore, accurately understanding the influence mechanism of dust has become the key to astronomical research. However, mapping the three-dimensional distribution of starlight absorption and scattering properties by dust in the Milky Way has long been a major challenge for the astronomical community.
Recently, a breakthrough has been made in this problem.Zhang Xiangyu, a Chinese doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, collaborated with his supervisor, Dr. Gregory Green, and successfully constructed the world's first interstellar dust absorption and scattering characteristics database containing billions of stars using massive observation data from China's LAMOST Telescope (LAMOST) and the European Space Agency's Gaia Space Telescope (Gaia).
Based on this database, the research team drew a three-dimensional dust distribution and characteristics map of the Milky Way covering the entire sky for the first time, providing unprecedented high-precision dust distribution information for astronomical research.
This breakthrough result is of great significance. First of all, it achieves for the first time a comprehensive, high-precision three-dimensional depiction of the distribution and characteristics of dust in the Milky Way, providing key data support for understanding the mechanism of dust's impact on starlight.
Secondly, the database and dust maps provide an important reference for astronomical observations and help improve the accuracy of observation data; finally, this research provides new perspectives and tools for in-depth research in the fields of galaxy evolution, cosmology and other fields, and will promote more breakthroughs in related fields.