25 Februar 2026
Using data from the European telescope network LOFAR, researchers have produced the most comprehensive radio map of the Universe to date. It shows 13.7 million cosmic radio sources and provides the most complete picture yet of active galaxies.
LOFAR is one of the largest and most sensitive radio telescopes in the world. It consists of a network of 52 stations across eight European countries, connected over distances of up to 2,000 kilometers.
"This data release brings together more than a decade of observations, large-scale data processing and scientific analysis by an international research team," says Dr. Timothy Shimwell, lead author and astronomer at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), which operates the radio telescope.
The Jülich Supercomputing Centre currently hosts nearly half of the LOFAR long-term archive. The Jülich supercomputer JUWELS was used to process and analyze a large portion of the discoveries.
World's largest telescope for short radio waves
Observations are carried out at low radio frequencies-a range that reveals high-energy processes in the cosmos that remain hidden from optical telescopes. These include powerful jets from the vicinity of black holes or galaxies in phases of intense star formation.
The combination of wide sky coverage, high sensitivity, and fine angular resolution also makes rare and previously difficult-to-detect objects visible, including merging galaxy clusters, faint supernova remnants, and flaring or interacting stars.
Discovering rare phenomena
The new map is already serving as the basis for hundreds of new studies on the formation and evolution of cosmic structures, extremely accelerated particles, and cosmic magnetic fields.
The data is also being searched specifically for rare astrophysical phenomena: variable radio sources, unknown supernova remnants, and some of the largest known radio galaxies have already been identified.
An enormous technical challenge
The current data set, the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS-DR3), is already the third major data release since LOFAR was launched in 2012. The results have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Creating the sky map was an enormous technical challenge. The LOFAR data archive is the largest astronomical data collection in the world. A total of 13,000 hours of observations had to be processed, calibrated, and precisely corrected for interference caused by the Earth's ionosphere.
"For this LoTSS sky survey, such vast volumes of data had to be stored, processed, and made accessible for the first time within the framework of an astronomical observation project. LOFAR has thus paved the way for future large-scale projects," says Cristina Manzano, Head of ODT Technical Services at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).
Looking Ahead
Since 2024, LOFAR has been organized as a European research infrastructure and is currently being upgraded to its successor system, LOFAR 2.0. The upgrade is expected to double the speed of sky surveys. Advances in data processing will also enable imaging with significantly higher angular resolution-allowing even more detailed studies of the radio sky.
