{"id":781071,"date":"2024-04-19T02:52:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=781071"},"modified":"2024-04-19T02:52:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:52:54","slug":"the-dusty-magnets-ofthe-milky-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=781071","title":{"rendered":"The Dusty Magnets ofthe Milky Way"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Out There<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe nation that controls magnetism will control the universe.\u201d So maintained Dick Tracy, the fictional detective in the comic strip by Chester Gould, in 1962.<\/p>\n

But does magnetism control the universe, too?<\/p>\n

About seven stars are born each year in the Milky Way, our home galaxy. They come from dust and to dust they eventually return. Now, a celestial image, an Impressionistic swirl of color in the center of the Milky Way, represents a first step toward understanding the role of those magnetic fields in the cycle of stellar death and rebirth.<\/p>\n

The image was produced by David Chuss, a physicist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and an international team of astronomers. The project is known as FIREPLACE, for Far-InfraRed Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration. The team\u2019s map reveals previously invisible details in a stretch of the central Milky Way 500 light-years wide.<\/p>\n

The colors represent different temperatures of interstellar dust: Green indicates cool, dense dust; pink indicates warmer dust. Threaded through these hues are lines showing the directions of magnetic force in the clouds. The yellow streaks are jets of hot ionized gas, which emits radio waves. The jets were first recorded two years ago by the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n