There’s still much to learn about our home galaxy
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The outer halo of the Milky Way is filled with magnetic fields that take the shape of vast doughnuts with diameters ranging from 12,000 to 100,000 light years, with the heart of our galaxy at their centre. These doughnut or ‘toroid’ shaped magnetic fields of the Milky Way are responsible for constraining the physical processes surrounding gas and dust that exist between stars, known as the interstellar medium, and also govern the propagation of charged particles called cosmic rays that travel through the universe at near-light speeds. The discovery could help better understand the origin and evolution of magnetic fields in the cosmos, a mystery that has baffled astronomers for decades.
The new study was led by National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) scientists Xu Jun and Han Jinlin. As well as previously determining the structure of magnetic fields along the spiral arms of the Milky Way, in 1997 Jinlin discovered a striking antisymmetry in the effects of celestial objects located beyond the Milky Way that are radio sources with respect to the coordinates of our galaxy. The researcher also found magnetic field directions were reversed below and above our galaxy’s main galactic plane.