magnetic fields Archives

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024 by Evan Gough

Groundbreaking New Maps of the Sun’s Coronal Magnetic Fields

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has mapped the magnetic field of the Sun's corona for the first time. The corona is the source of most space weather, and this map will help scientists better understand the corona, space weather and other stars. Image Credit: Schad et al. 2024.

If you enjoyed this summer’s display of aurora borealis, thank the Sun’s corona. The corona is the Sun’s outer layer and is the source of most space weather, including aurorae. The aurora borealis are benign light shows, but not all space weather produces such harmless displays; some of it is dangerous and destructive.

In an effort to understand space weather and the solar corona, the National Science Foundation aimed the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, at the corona to map its magnetic fields.

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 by Evan Gough

Black Holes Dominate Large Regions of Space, But They’re Mysterious

This image is from a black hole simulator. It shows a supermassive black hole, or quasar, surrounded by a swirling disk of material called an accretion disk. There are many unanswered questions about black holes and how they grow to be so massive. Simulations is one way of finding answers. Image Credit: Caltech/Phil Hopkins group

In the beginning, the Universe was all primordial gas. Somehow, some of it was swept up into supermassive black holes (SMBHs), the gargantuan singularities that reside at the heart of galaxies. The details of how that happened and how SMBHs accumulate mass are some of astrophysics’ biggest questions.

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 by Evan Gough

Webb Sees a Star in the Midst of Formation

In this JWST image, a young protostar is growing larger and emitting jets of material from inside its molecular cloud. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Wherever the JWST looks in space, matter and energy are interacting in spectacular displays. The Webb reveals more detail in these interactions than any other telescope because it can see through dense gas and dust that cloak many objects.

In a new image, the JWST spots a young protostar only 100,000 years old.

January 17, 2024January 17, 2024 by Brian Koberlein

Astronomers Have Mapped the Milky Way's Magnetic Fields in 3D

Magnetic fields mapped within the Whirlpool Galaxy. Credit: NASA, SOFIA science team, ESA, STScI

Our galaxy is filled with magnetic fields. They come not just from stars and planets, but from dusty stellar nurseries and the diffuse hydrogen gas of interstellar space. We’ve long known of this galactic magnetic field, but mapping it in detail has posed a challenge. Now a new study gives us a detailed 3-dimensional map of these fields, with a few surprises.

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023 by Evan Gough

The Second Most Energetic Cosmic Ray Ever Found

An example of a cosmic-ray extensive air shower recorded by the Subaru Telescope. The highlighted tracks, which are mostly aligned in similar directions, show the shower particles induced from a high-energy cosmic ray. Credit: NAOJ/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Collaboration

“Oh My God,” someone must have said in 1991 when researchers detected the most energetic cosmic ray ever to strike Earth. Those three words were adopted as the name for the phenomenon: the Oh-My-God particle. Where did it come from?

November 22, 2023November 22, 2023 by Evan Gough

Webb’s Infrared Eye Reveals the Heart of the Milky Way

The full view of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals a 50 light-years-wide portion of the Milky Way’s dense centre. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Crowe (UVA)

The JWST is taking a break from studying the distant Universe and has trained its infrared eye on the heart of the Milky Way. The world’s most powerful space telescope has uncovered some surprises and generated some stunning images of the Milky Way’s galactic center (GC.) It’s focused on an enormous star-forming region called Sagittarius C (Sgr C).

June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 by Evan Gough

The Tarantula Nebula Shouldn’t Be Forming Stars. What’s Going On?

30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Streamlines show the magnetic field morphology from SOFIA HAWC+ polarization maps. These are superimposed on a composite image captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy. Credit: Background: ESO, M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit. Streamlines: NASA/SOFIA

The Tarantula Nebula is a star formation region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Tarantula is about 160,000 light-years away and is highly luminous for a non-stellar object. It’s the brightest and largest star formation region in the entire Local Group of galaxies.

But it shouldn’t be.

June 1, 2023June 1, 2023 by Evan Gough

These New Computer Simulations of the Sun are Hypnotic

Computer simulation of magnetic structures in solar-like conditions. Image: Jörn Warnecke

It’s almost impossible to over-emphasize the primal, raging, natural power of a star. Our Sun may appear benign in simple observations, but with the advanced scientific instruments at our disposal in modern times, we know differently. In observations outside the narrow band of light our eyes can see, the Sun appears as an enraged, infuriated sphere, occasionally hurling huge jets of plasma into space, some of which slam into Earth.

Jets of plasma slamming into Earth isn’t something to be celebrated (unless you’re in a weird cult); it can cause all kinds of problems.

May 12, 2023May 12, 2023 by Matt Williams

New Images Reveal the Magnetic Fields in the Horsehead Nebula

Magnetic field detections overlaid on a two-color composite of Hubble Space Telescope image taken at two near-IR wavelengths (Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes). Black and orange segments show magnetic field orientations inferred from JCMT and Palomar Observatory. Credit: Hwang et al. 2023.

Located near the summit of Maunakea, Hawaii, the 15-meter (~49 ft) James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at the East Asia Observatory (EAO) is the largest telescope in the world designed to operate exclusively in the submillimetre-wavelength. In 2018, Molokai’i High School alumna Mallory Go was awarded time with the JCMT under the Maunakea Scholars program. With the assistance of EAO astronomer Dr. Harriet Parsons, Go obtained unique images of the Horsehead Nebula in polarized light, which revealed the nebula’s magnetic fields.

May 10, 2023May 10, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Meteorites Store a Magnetic Memory of the Early Solar System

Black Beauty, or NWA 7034, is a Martian meteorite thought to have formed at a time when the Red Planet harbored a magnetic field. Credit: C Agee, Institute of Meteoritics, UNM; NASA

Although they are thought of as rare, meteorites are actually quite common. About 40,000 tons of meteorites strike Earth every day. Most of them land in the ocean, and most are quite tiny, but they are still common enough that hobbyists all over the world find meteorites all the time. The most common place to find them is in arid regions where their coloring can stand out from the terrain. But even then a meteorite can be difficult to distinguish from terrestrial rocks.