Astronomers in the “GBT Observations of TMC-1: Hunting Aromatic Molecules” research survey, known as GOTHAM, have released a spectral line survey with largest amount of telescope time ever conducted, charting more than 100 molecular species only found in deep space.
Recent News
Astronomers Map Mysterious “Dark” Gas in the Milky Way
An international team of astronomers has created the first-ever large-scale maps of a mysterious form of matter, known as CO-dark molecular gas, in one of our Milky Way Galaxy’s most active star-forming neighborhoods, Cygnus X.
Astronomers Spot Magnetically-Guided Streamer Funneling Star-Building Material into Newborn System in Perseus
Using the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), their team observed— for the first time ever— a narrow, spiral-shaped streamer of gas guided by magnetic fields, channeling matter from the surrounding cloud of a star-forming region in Perseus, directly onto a newborn binary star system.
Unusual stellar nurseries near our galaxy’s center puzzle scientists
These images are made from data from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Herschel Space Observatory. Image credit: J. De Buizer (SETI) / SOFIA / Spitzer / Herschel
New research led by Dr. James De Buizer at the SETI Institute and Dr. Wanggi Lim at IPAC at Caltech revealed surprising results about the rate at which high-mass stars form in the galactic center of the Milky Way. The researchers based their study primarily on observations from NASA’s now-retired SOFIA airborne observatory, and using data from the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array archive, and focuses on three star-forming regions—Sgr B1, Sgr B2, and Sgr C—located at the heart of the galaxy.
This science was presented at the 246th American Astronomical Society Conference in Anchorage, Alaska on Monday, June 9, 2025, 2:15 PM AK. You can read the full release from SETI.
About NRAO
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
This news article was originally published on the NRAO website on June 13, 2025.
Recent News
Astronomers Share Largest Molecular Survey To-date: GOTHAM Legacy Data Goes Public
Astronomers in the “GBT Observations of TMC-1: Hunting Aromatic Molecules” research survey, known as GOTHAM, have released a spectral line survey with largest amount of telescope time ever conducted, charting more than 100 molecular species only found in deep space.
Astronomers Map Mysterious “Dark” Gas in the Milky Way
An international team of astronomers has created the first-ever large-scale maps of a mysterious form of matter, known as CO-dark molecular gas, in one of our Milky Way Galaxy’s most active star-forming neighborhoods, Cygnus X.
Astronomers Spot Magnetically-Guided Streamer Funneling Star-Building Material into Newborn System in Perseus
Using the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), their team observed— for the first time ever— a narrow, spiral-shaped streamer of gas guided by magnetic fields, channeling matter from the surrounding cloud of a star-forming region in Perseus, directly onto a newborn binary star system.