For hundreds of years, astronomers have studied the night sky in an effort to understand the forces shaping the universe. One of the most important, yet invisible, forces inside the Milky Way is its magnetic field. Now, researchers at the University of Calgary are producing one of the clearest views yet of that hidden structure.
"Without a magnetic field, the galaxy would collapse in on itself due to gravity," says Brown, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary.
"We need to know what the magnetic field of the galaxy looks like now, so we can create accurate models that predict how it will evolve."
This month, Brown and her collaborators published two studies in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. Their work introduces a major new dataset that astronomers around the world will be able to use, along with a new model explaining how the Milky Way's magnetic field may have changed over time.
Mapping the Milky Way's Magnetic Field
