Scientists from the OGLE team (The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) from the University of Warsaw created a new, unique three-dimensional map of the Milky Way. The article, in which researchers described their map, was published by the journal Science. This is the first completely Polish work in this journal for 30 years.

OGLE is a project run by the University of Warsaw Astronomical Observatory headed by Professor Andrzej Udalski. This project is one of the world’s largest photometric surveys of the sky.

Researchers from the University of Warsaw created a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way on the basis of direct measurements. In their opinion, the best way to achieve this goal would be to focus on a group of stars with similar properties.

To create a map, astronomers used over 2,400 cepheids (young stars up to 250 million years old), most of which were detected with the help of a Warsaw telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.