This bizarre-looking new map of our Milky Way galaxy shows the magnetic fields at its center. It’s a one-off image in more ways than one because, in addition to being a unique new view, it was created using data from a recently decommissioned NASA spaceplane.
Magnetic Map
The result of a NASA-funded collaboration led by researchers from Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, the map is the largest ever obtained with NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which was retired by the space agency in 2022.
The image, which measures nearly 500 light-years across, shows how magnetic fields interact with dust at the galaxy’s center. That’s a critical relationship since it’s how stars and planets for—and, ultimately, life—but until now, it’s gone mostly unstudied.
Dust Clouds
The project, dubbed “Fireplace” (Far-InfraREd Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration), collected data to measure the polarization of the radiation emitted from dust aligned by magnetic fields in the Milky Way. The project received funding from NASA in 2020 to use SOFIA, a telescope housed in a 747 and flown at 45,000 feet. Data was collected on nine flights.
The finished map uses colors to differentiate different temperatures at the galaxy’s center. Warm dust clouds are shown in pink, cool in blue, and radio filaments in yellow.
Mapping Dust
The map is the latest in a long tradition of groundbreaking maps of the Milky Way.
In July 2022, astronomers unveiled an animation to model dust in our Milky Way galaxy. It was based on new data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission and the 2MASS All Sky Survey. Researchers from the EXPLORE project developed a map that covers about 13,000 light-years of the Milky Way, revealing swirls of dust nearby and gathering along the galactic plane. The map is important for cosmologists in revealing regions without dust, allowing unobstructed views to study the universe beyond.
If observed from afar, the Milky Way would appear as a thin disk formed by around 300 billion stars.
Galactic Plane
In January, data captured by the Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile was used to create a gigantic image of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. By observing at near-infrared wavelengths, it revealed over three billion objects. That allowed astronomers to see fainter stars and peer through dust clouds.
The same mountaintop is home to the Rubin Observatory, which later this year will use the most powerful camera ever built to image the entire southern hemisphere night sky every three nights. Its 10-year “Legacy Survey of Space and Time” (LSST) is expected to help astronomers identify events happening in the Milky Way and beyond, including supernovas, comets, and asteroids.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
