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 Scientists at the Parkes telescope, 355 km (220 miles) west of
Sydney, said they had detected 883 galaxies, a third of which had
never been seen before. The findings were reported in the latest
issue of Astronomical Journal under the title 'The Parkes HI Zone of
Avoidance Survey'.
"Hundreds of new galaxies were discovered, using the same telescope
that was used to broadcast the TV pictures from Apollo 11," said
Lister Staveley-Smith, a professor at the University of Western
Australia's International Center for Radio Astronomy Research.
"The electronic technology at the back end is substantially
different and that is why we can still keep using these old
telescopes," he said.
 The discoveries occurred as the scientists were investigating the
region's close proximity to the Great Attractor, a gravity anomaly
in intergalactic space.
The Great Attractor appears to be drawing the Milky Way towards it
with a gravitational force equivalent more than two million km per
hour (1.24 million mph).
Using radio waves has allowed scientists to see beyond dust and
stars in the Milky Way that had previously blocked the view of
telescopes, the study showed.
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Staveley-Smith, the lead author on the Astronomical Journal, said
scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious
Great Attractor since major deviations from universal expansion were
first discovered in the 1970s and 1980s.
"It’s a missing part of the jigsaw puzzle, which is the structure of
our local universe," said Michael Burton, a professor at the
University of New South Wales' Physics School.
"They have managed to pierce through it and complete the picture of
what our part of the universe looks like."
(Editing by Paul Tait)
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