Over the last 13 years, an incredible piece of technology in Chile has been quietly reshaping our understanding of the Milky Way. It’s called VISTA—the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy—and it’s been part of an ambitious project to map our galaxy.
The largest infrared map of our galaxy
Since 2010, the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea, or VVV, and its extension VVVX, have been observing the central regions of the Milky Way. Over the course of 420 observation nights, VISTA has captured around 200,000 images, tracking over 1.5 billion celestial objects. The result? A staggering 500 terabytes of data, making it the largest data collection ever for a European Southern Observatory (ESO) project.
Largest data collection ever
This data has already led to some fascinating discoveries. We’ve found ancient globular clusters—the oldest objects in our galaxy—and even hypervelocity stars that have been expelled from the galaxy’s core by a supermassive black hole.
Thanks to VISTA’s infrared capabilities, we can see through interstellar dust and gas to observe hidden areas of the Milky Way. That means clear views of objects that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye, like brown dwarfs—these are ‘failed’ stars that don’t sustain nuclear fusion—or even free-floating planets not bound to any star.
UK role on VISTA
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the UK played a key role in the development and delivery of VISTA. With a 4.1-meter mirror, VISTA is the world’s largest dedicated infrared survey telescope, and it’s helped astronomers peer deeper into our galaxy than ever before.
What’s more, this project has been a collaborative effort, involving 18 UK universities and researchers from around the world. Over 300 scientific publications and 30 doctoral theses have already come from this dataset.
This is a huge milestone in astronomy, but it’s not the end. Moving forward, VISTA will be upgraded, and the next generation of instruments will allow us to study these objects even further. We’re just beginning to unlock the secrets of our galaxy.
The telescope is now operated by ESO.
The VISTA consortium consisted of:
- Queen Mary, University of London
- Queen’s University of Belfast
- University of Birmingham
- University of Cambridge
- Cardiff University
- University of Central Lancashire
- Durham University
- The University of Edinburgh
- University of Hertfordshire
- Keele University
- Leicester University
- Liverpool John Moores University
- University of Nottingham
- University of Oxford
- University of St Andrews
- University of Southampton
- University of Sussex
- University College London