http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10825806/
Magnetic ‘Slinky’ confirms space theory
Astronomers find coiled magnetic field that may aid star formation
By Ker Than
Space.com
Updated: 5:46 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - Astronomers have discovered a giant magnetic field that is
coiled like a snake around a rod-shaped gas cloud in the constellation
Orion.
Timothy Robishaw, a graduate student at the University of California at
Berkeley involved in the discovery, described the structure as a "giant,
magnetic Slinky wrapped around a long, fingerlike interstellar cloud."
Astronomers call that wound-up shape "helical."
The discovery, presented here this week at a meeting of the American
Astronomical Society, was made in the Orion Molecular Cloud, a known
stellar nursery in the constellation Orion. It supports a previous
theory about how magnetic fields interact with interstellar gas clouds.
In 2000, Jason Fiege and Ralph Pudritz from McMaster University
suggested that filamentary clouds like the Orion Molecular Cloud might
exhibit a helical magnetic field around their long axis. This discovery
is the first confirmation of their theory.
Astronomers have long suspected that magnetic fields, combined with
gravity, help to pull dust inside the clouds together to make stars. But
magnetic fields in space are difficult to detect.
"The [magnetic] field in interstellar space is very weak, and there are
systematic measurement effects that can produce erroneous results,"
Robishaw said.
The helical shape of the magnetic field is believed to be caused by
matter in the interstellar cloud moving in a straight line along the
length of the filament. When this happens, it causes the magnetic field
around the cloud to spiral around in a corkscrew pattern. The
researchers were able to detect this spiral shape using the Green Bank
Telescope, a radio observatory in West Virginia.
Carl Heiles, an astronomer at Berkeley who headed the study, said that
there is one other possible explanation for the magnetic field’s helical
shape. It may be that streaming jets of high-energy particles from the
neighboring constellation Eridanus produced magnetic waves that were
transported by shock waves to the Orion Molecular Cloud, Heiles said.
Once there, the magnetic field could have wrapped around the cloud in
the spiral pattern that was observed.
The researchers said that further study is needed to distinguish between
the two possibilities.
© 2006 Space.com
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Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
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