Giant magnetic ropes seen in Whale Galaxy's halo

Using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope, a team of astronomers has captured for the first time an image of large-scale, coherent, magnetic fields in the halo of a faraway spiral galaxy, confirming theoretical modeling of how galaxies generate magnetic fields and potentially increasing knowledge of how galaxies form and evolve.

Composite image of the galaxy NGC 4631, the "Whale Galaxy," revealing large magnetic structures. Photo: Composite image by Jayanne English of the University of Manitoba, with NRAO VLA radio data from Silvia Carolina Mora-Partiarroyo and Marita Krause of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

"To understand how stars like the sun and planets like Earth came to be, we must understand how galaxies, such as our Milky Way, form and evolve," said Matthew Benacquista, a project director in NSF's division of Astronomical Sciences.

"This project is an attempt to measure galactic magnetic fields and learn how they influence the way that interstellar gases are ejected from galaxy disks and contribute to galaxy formation and evolution."

The spiral galaxy, identified as NGC 4631 or the "Whale Galaxy," is seen edge-on in the image, with its disk of stars shown in pink. The field lines are shown in green and blue, extending beyond the disk into the galaxy's extended halo.

Green indicates filaments with their magnetic field pointing roughly toward the viewer, and blue indicates filaments with their magnetic fields pointing away. This phenomenon, with the field alternating in direction, has never been seen before in the halo of a galaxy. (National Science Foundation)

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

'Cotton Candy' Planet Mysteries Unravel in New Hubble Observations

"Super-Puffs" may sound like a new breakfast cereal. But it's actually the nickname for a unique and rare class of young exoplanets that have the density of cotton candy. Nothing like them exists in our solar system.

Spitzer Studies a Stellar Playground With a Long History

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Perseus Molecular Cloud, a massive collection of gas and dust that stretches over 500 light-years across.

ESO Observations Reveal Black Holes' Breakfast at the Cosmic Dawn

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have observed reservoirs of cool gas around some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. These gas halos are the perfect food for supermassive black holes at the centre of these galaxies, which are now seen as they were over 12.5 billion years ago.

NASA's Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery

Jupiter's south pole has a new cyclone.

ALMA spots most distant dusty galaxy hidden in plain sight

Radio telescopes detect light of massive galaxy seen 970 million years after the Big Bang.

Water common – yet scarce – in exoplanets

The most extensive survey of atmospheric chemical compositions of exoplanets to date has revealed trends that challenge current theories of planet formation and has implications for the search for water in the solar system and beyond.